Kate Conway-Turner, Ph.D.
President In Residence, American Academic Leadership Institute
Dr. Katherine (Kate) Conway-Turner is a nationally and internationally recognized higher education administrator and scholar of applied social psychology. She completed her undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Kansas before embarking on post-doctoral training at UCLA in behavioral public health. She is a Social Psychologist focusing on psychological factors that impact mental and physical health across the life span.
She has served in five higher education institutions with increasing levels of responsibility and oversight during her career. She began her career as a faculty member at Santa Clara University, then moved to University of Delaware where she rose to a full Professor and lead as a department chair and an associate Dean at University of Delaware, moving then to Georgia Southern University as a Dean, launched to SUNY Geneseo as Provost and again Provost at Hood College, before her inauguration as President in 2014 at Buffalo State University.
She has been recognized as a Buffalo Business First Power leader, a New York State Higher Education leader and a City and State Power 100 for numerous years. She has received awards recognizing her leadership from the National Federation of Just Communities, the Buffalo Holocaust Resource Center, The League of Women Voters, Girl Scouts of America, the city of Buffalo, and many others.
She retired in June 2023 after nine years leading Buffalo State University as their president. During her presidency she lead her campus through strategic planning, significant capital projects, signature fund-raising activities, accreditation reviews, financial concerns due to enroll swings, and the unexpected crisis of the corona virus pandemic.
She is known for her passion for the role that education plays in transforming the lives of individuals and their communities. Her focus to use your personal talents to lift your community has given her a passionate voice for education for the public good. She has served in public and private higher education universities over her 40 years in higher education and she continues to embrace the importance of all higher education institutions to strive for true excellence in all of their work and to support diversity, equity and inclusion. She is dedicated to advancing high quality and student-centered education and is currently Vice Chair and commissioner for the MSCHE (Middle States).