President Dr. José Luis Cruz Rivera

Northern Arizona University’s 17^th president

José Luis Cruz Rivera began his tenure as the 17^th President of Northern Arizona University (NAU) on June 14, 2021.

President Cruz Rivera joined Northern Arizona University (NAU) in June 2021. In his first year, he led the development of the Elevating Excellence strategic roadmap in collaboration with university stakeholders. This bold vision for a “new NAU” has inspired transformative efforts to deliver postsecondary value, including broadening access to record numbers of Arizona students, implementing innovative admissions and financial aid practices, and launching statewide partnerships to boost attainment. Dr. Cruz Rivera also serves as a Professor of Electrical Engineering at NAU and currently teaches a freshman course on digital logic circuits. 

Before joining NAU, Dr. Cruz Rivera was President of The City University of New York’s (CUNY) Herbert H. Lehman College (Bronx, NY) and Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost of the 25-college, 500,000-student CUNY system, the largest urban university in the world.

He previously served as Provost of California State University, Fullerton; Vice President of Higher Education Policy and Practice at The Education Trust in Washington, DC; and Chief Student Affairs Officer for the University of Puerto Rico system. His academic career began as a faculty member in engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, where he rose through the ranks to become Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and Dean of Academic Affairs.

A nationally recognized advocate for accessible, affordable, quality education, Dr. Cruz Rivera is a frequent keynote speaker and writer on higher education issues. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and secured funding for his work from prominent organizations, including the National Science Foundation, Lumina Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education. His efforts have been featured in outlets such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, and Univision. 

Dr. Cruz Rivera serves on the National Advisory Committee for Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), the Arizona Commerce Authority, and the steering committee of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. He has also served on numerous boards, including The Education Trust, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), The Data Quality Campaign, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), and the Postsecondary Value Commission. 

A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Dr. Cruz Rivera is a patented inventor, published scholar, and National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient. He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, and his master’s and doctorate from the Georgia Institute of Technology, specializing in optical interconnections for ultracompact massively parallel processing systems.