Dr. Samuel L. Stanley, Jr., MD, ID fellow ‘84, recently stepped down as the 5th president of Stony Brook University on July 31, 2019, to officially begin his presidency at Michigan State University, one of the largest universities in the U. S. Under his direction, Stony Brook became one of the nation’s top universities for social mobility and led the university’s expansion into the growing field of artificial intelligence. During his 10 year tenure, Stony Brook received the sixth-largest donation to a public university ever recorded.
A Harvard-educated physician and native of Seattle, Dr. Stanley received his medical training at Massachusetts General Hospital. He completed a fellowship in infectious diseases at Washington University in St. Louis, where he later became a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Molecular Microbiology. Before going to Stony Brook, he was the vice chancellor for research at Washington University.
In addition to his work in academia, Dr. Stanley is a renowned medical researcher and was one of the nation’s highest recipients of support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his research focusing on enhanced defense against emerging infectious diseases. He is an expert in the biological mechanisms that cells employ when responding to infectious agents such as parasites, bacteria and viruses — a process commonly called the inflammatory response. He served as Director of the NIH -funded Midwest Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research.