Kleniewski Praises

Chancellor Choice

SUNY To Name Katrina Johnson Today

ONEONTA – SUNY Oneonta President Nancy Kleniewski this morning praised the choice of Dr. Katrina Johnson as SUNY chancellor, calling her “an accomplished scientist, entrepreneur and educator.”

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Johnson, who co-founded Cube Hydro, a hydroelectric company, after serving as under secretary of the Department of Energy, is expected to be appointed by the SUNY trustees at 3 p.m. today in Albany.  She would succeed Nancy Zimpher, who is retiring.

“Dr. Johnson has been a leader at the highest levels of government, business, and academia,” Kleniewski said.  “I am confident that she will build on Chancellor Zimpher’s initiatives to make the State University of New York the most successful system of higher education in the country. I am looking forward to meeting her this afternoon and working with her in the coming year.”

In January 2015, she co-founded Cube Hydro, based in Bethesda, Md., which is seeking to acquire hydroelectric resources and build new ones.

Previouslyl, as under secretary of energy in the Obama Administration, she was responsible for unifying and managing a broad $10.5 billion Energy and Environment portfolio, including an additional $37 billion in energy and environment investments from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, according to her bio on www.cubehydropartners.com

Previously, she was at Johns Hopkins University (2007-09) as provost and senior vice president of academic affairs, dean of  the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University (1999-2007), and professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is on the boards of directors at AES Corp., Cisco Systems, Boston Scientific and GE’s Ecomagination.

A Fulbright Faculty Scholar in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and a NATO Post-Doctoral Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin, Dr. Johnson received her B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University and has honorary degrees from Trinity College, Dublin, Tufts University, McGill University and the University of Alabama at Huntsville.

She is a fellow of the OSA, IEEE, SPIE, AAAS and recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Women Engineers. She was awarded the Dennis Gabor Award for Creativity in Modern Optics, the John Fritz Medal, considered the highest award given in the engineering profession, and has been inducted into the US Inventors Hall of Fame, the National Academy of Inventors, the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame, the Women in Information Technology Hall of Fame and the Small Business Technology Council Hall of Fame (2010). She holds 119 U.S and International patents and has published 142 refereed publications.