President
Ana Mari Cauce
From her beginnings in Havana, Cuba, to a life and career as Husky, Ana Mari Cauce's path to the UW presidency was marked by her passion for student access and opportunity.
Leading with values: Ana Mari Cauce’s legacy
A journey to leadership
When she was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1956, no one could have predicted that Ana Mari Cauce would go on to become the 33rd president of the University of Washington. Her winding path from Havana to Seattle found her frequently defying expectations as she developed into a resilient leader with deeply held values — committed to the public good through educational opportunity for students, groundbreaking research and world-class health care for all.
Cauce as a child with her mother and brother
Cauce with her grandmother, mother, aunt and brother at their home in Miami
Leaving home
When Cauce was just 3 years old, the Cuban Revolution forced her parents to leave their homeland, eventually making their way to Miami, where they sent for young Ana Mari and her brother to join them. They were among the first of what would be hundreds of thousands to flee Cuba for Miami. Her father had been Cuba’s minister of education — but as refugees, the Cauces lived modestly, both parents working factory jobs to support the family. Through it all, the family held fast to their belief in the power of education, which in their household was almost like the family religion. Her father would often say, “Education is the only thing that no one can ever take away from you” — inspiring words in light of all her parents had lost.
When Cauce was just 3 years old, the Cuban Revolution forced her father and mother to leave their homeland.
Cauce as an infant in Cuba with her father, Vicente
As a child, Cauce aspired to become a teacher. But during high school in the early ’70s she was inspired by journalists Bob Woodward’s and Carl Bernstein’s reporting on the Watergate scandal, and as an undergraduate at the University of Miami, she planned to double major in journalism and English and become a journalist. Then, an encounter with psychology research as an undergrad sparked a new passion that forever altered her course. She graduated in 1977 with a double major in English and psychology, and she decided to pursue a graduate degree in clinical psychology, opening the possibilities of a career in teaching and research or as a practicing psychotherapist.
Until then Cauce had stayed close to home, commuting to University of Miami a few miles away because, in her words, “good Cuban girls didn’t leave home.” But her horizons expanded dramatically after being accepted and enrolling in the Yale University psychology doctoral program. At Yale, a bastion of old-school privilege and tradition, Cauce stood out, and she encountered her share of stereotyping and preconceptions about her identity; senior academics dismissed her research focus on at-risk adolescents like those from her own community as “me-search.”
Inspiration and tragedy
But Yale also introduced Cauce to the field of community psychology, which looked beyond individual pathology to emphasize prevention and the ecological factors that shape risk and resilience in populations. She found support and inspiration, particularly from her doctoral adviser who would become a lifelong mentor and friend, the celebrated psychologist and African American studies scholar Edmund Gordon. Gordon was himself mentored by giants of the American academy, including sociologist and civil rights icon W.E.B. Du Bois, and Cauce takes pride in being part of this storied academic lineage.
This period, however, also brought the most devastating loss of her life. In 1979, as she was working on her master’s thesis, Cauce’s brother, César, was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party, in what is now known as the Greensboro Massacre. This wrenching personal tragedy threatened to derail Cauce’s academic career, but she persevered, earning her doctorate in clinical/community psychology in 1984.
A home at the UW
After a brief stint on the University of Delaware faculty, Cauce received offers for positions at multiple universities, the UW among them. Though Seattle was barely on her radar before she arrived on campus, she found that the UW’s psychology department, campus and culture spoke to her.
Amid the University’s setting of stunning natural beauty, Cauce discovered a welcoming academic community where people could collaborate to accomplish big things — a theme that remains the centerpiece of her career. Still, as she accepted the assistant professor job, she never imagined she was embarking on a UW career that would span decades, much less take her to the University’s highest office.
In 1986, Cauce joined the UW Department of Psychology as an assistant professor — the first of her many roles at the UW.
On the UW faculty, Cauce thrived as a teacher, lab director and community researcher, attracting numerous students to her work studying adolescent development, with an emphasis on the most vulnerable and at-risk youth. Early tenure, promotion, recognitions and awards for her research quickly followed, including an Excellence in Research award for an early-career scientist from the American Psychological Association in 1992 and two Distinguished Contribution Awards for Research in 2002 and 2003. But the awards she’s proudest of are those that recognize her teaching and mentorship, including the UW’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1999.
Cauce at the news conference where her presidential appointment is announced
Becoming a UW leader
Thanks to her success in teaching, mentoring and running a research lab, it wasn’t long before the administration came calling. Cauce has sometimes described her growing CV of leadership positions — director of clinical training, multiple department chairs, Honors Program director — as becoming an “accidental administrator.” She initially viewed these administrative positions as worthy but secondary to her calling as a teacher and researcher.
Over time, however, she found that the same strengths and motivations that led her to teaching and research were served by taking on more senior administrative roles. Supporting faculty and students, creating access to a world-class education for youth from a broad array of backgrounds and economic circumstances, serving the public good through research — these were goals, she realized, that could be advanced from a position of leadership.
In 2005, Cauce accepted the position of executive vice provost. In 2008, she became dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, the UW’s largest college. And in 2011 she accepted the position of provost, the UW’s chief academic officer, under UW President Michael Young.
When Young accepted an offer from Texas A&M just four years into his term, Cauce was tapped to serve as interim president, and she stepped into the role with her customary zeal, launching the UW Race & Equity Initiative as her first act in office. Then, as now, it was rare for a long-serving faculty member to be selected as president of a major research university like the UW, and the Board of Regents conducted a national search for Young’s permanent successor. In the end they concluded what so many of Cauce’s colleagues and friends across the UW already knew: She was the ideal person for the job, as recognized by her induction into the leadership divisions of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.
Now, as Ana Mari Cauce concludes her second five-year term leading this global public research university through one of the most turbulent eras in history, she remembers what she told the Regents more than a decade ago about what she could offer as president: “I can’t walk on water, but I know where the rocks are.” Her steady hand at the helm as the UW has increased its impact, excellence and service to the public is clear evidence that she was right.
Impact through the years
UW President Ana Mari Cauce has made a career out of squaring academia’s lofty ideals with the real-world demands of running a major research university. Raised in Miami, the child of Cuban immigrants, her interest in education and instinct for social justice started early. As a psychology professor and self-described “accidental administrator,” she rose through the ranks of one of the world’s leading public research universities with a particular focus on diversity and inclusion. In Cauce’s own words, her presidency has been a mix of “tumultuous periods and transformative events,” and she has steadily steered the UW through a complex political landscape, soaring aspirations and seismic change.
1977–84
Ana Mari Cauce studies English and psychology at the University of Miami before heading to Yale for a doctorate in psychology, researching risk and resilience in adolescents.
In the wake of the tragic death of her brother, César Cauce, an activist killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party at a rally in 1979, she realized that serving higher education “was the best way for me to play a positive role in the world.”
1986
Cauce joins the University of Washington as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology. Her teaching includes the undergraduate course Psych 205: Introduction to Personality as well as Clinical Child Psychology.
1996–97
Cauce’s duties expand. She becomes director of clinical training for the psychology department. Then, recognized for her sympathetic leadership, the UW regents vote to appoint her chair of the American Ethnic Studies Department, which is in turmoil over faculty contracts, course selection and vacant teaching positions. Students initially protest her appointment, but in the first year she gains the confidence of students and faculty alike — receiving a “Rookie of the Year” plaque as she sets the department on a new path. She becomes a full professor and launches her journey into administration.
2000–15
As director of the Honors Program, then chair of the psychology department, then executive vice provost, Cauce steps from one leadership role to another. In 2008 she becomes dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, the UW’s largest academic unit. In 2012 she’s chosen as provost, the UW’s second-in-command and in charge of decisions for academics and the budget of over $6 billion. Her selection is welcomed by faculty, who value her efforts as dean and thorough knowledge of the University.
2015
After 30 minutes of deliberation and with a standing ovation, the UW Board of Regents appoints Cauce interim president of the University of Washington. One month into her interim presidency, Cauce launches the Race & Equity Initiative, placing diversity and equity among the central focuses of the University. Six months later, her interim position is made permanent, when the regents unanimously take the rare move of hiring a president from inside the University.
2015
Cauce forms the UW School of Medicine–Gonzaga University Health Partnership, ensuring that the UW School of Medicine will remain in Eastern Washington, eventually leading to construction of a cutting-edge health education facility in Spokane.
2016
Launching the University-wide Population Health Initiative, Cauce announces a 25-year campaign to help whole communities live longer, healthier lives. The initiative is collaborative across disciplines, campuses and communities, comprising three pillars: human health, environmental resilience, and social and economic equity. A $210 million donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation creates a home for the work in the Hans Rosling Center, which opens in 2020.
2019
Cauce exercises her strength in working with the legislature, and a sweeping higher education bill passed with bipartisan support allows for more Washington students to attend the UW for less money. Described as the most progressive state higher ed funding bill in years, the Workforce Education Investment Act raises nearly $1 billion over four years by increasing the state’s business-and-occupation tax. The bill, which was supported by many businesses including Microsoft and Amazon, eliminates the financial-aid waitlist and allows the University to better weather financial downturns.
2020
Under Cauce’s leadership, the UW sets a new record by raising $6.3 billion from more than half a million donors as part of the Be Boundless — For Washington, for the World campaign.
2020–21
Washington is the first state in the nation to identify a case of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. One month later, the first known COVID-19 death in the U.S. occurs in Washington state. The UW becomes the first school in the country to move to remote instruction. Meanwhile, UW researchers develop a laboratory test for the virus, and the UW-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation becomes an international resource for tracking and predicting the spread of the virus, informing global response.
2023
Cauce makes the decision to move the UW from the Pac-12 Conference to the Big Ten, based on declining opportunities for the Pac-12 and more alignment and opportunity in the larger and more powerful conference.
2024–25
Cauce’s final academic year as president starts off with UW Professor David Baker winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on protein design. “This is about as big as it gets!” Cauce exclaims during a press conference. The UW officially joins the Big Ten Conference, putting athletics on the highest-profile national stage and opening opportunities in research and collaboration with other conference institutions. Cauce winds down her year as one of the UW’s longest-serving and most beloved presidents.
2025
Creation of the new Ana Mari Cauce Welcome Center at the University of Washington is approved by the UW Board of Regents, which votes to name the center in recognition of Cauce’s “extraordinary leadership” and commitment to community engagement. Cauce describes it as “weirdly wonderful to be honored by this project.”