About President Cunningham

Rebecca Cunningham became the 18th President of the University of Minnesota on July 1, 2024. 

President Cunningham leads the University of Minnesota’s mission to educate the next generation of leaders, strengthen communities across the state and generate discoveries that improve lives throughout Minnesota, the nation and the world.

She has articulated a bold vision for the University of Minnesota as a magnet for top talent, a powerful driver of economic vitality and one of the nation’s most impactful public research universities. Central to that vision is the University’s role as a modern land-grant institution—one that delivers real-world solutions, expands opportunity, and serves the public good.

Under her leadership, the University is championing real world learning as a defining element of an accessible, world-class education, ensuring students are prepared to lead, innovate and contribute across sectors. She has also made improving health and healthcare for all Minnesotans—today and for decades to come—a central institutional priority, alongside protecting and advancing the state’s natural resources, with a particular emphasis on rural economic vitality and precision agriculture.

These priority areas are embedded in Elevate Extraordinary 2030, the strategic roadmap launched under President Cunningham in October 2025. This roadmap builds upon the University’s historic strengths while setting objectives greater than anything already accomplished. It is being implemented with strong support and ongoing engagement from students, faculty, staff, alumni and community partners throughout Minnesota.

In parallel, President Cunningham is leading the launch of a new brand and travelling across the state and nation to engage with prospective students and loyal alumni in celebration of the University’s 175th year. She also maintains a faculty appointment in the School of Public Health’s Division of Epidemiology & Community Health.

In January 2026, President Cunningham led the University of Minnesota—Minnesota’s health and healthcare leader—to forge a new agreement with M Physicians and Fairview that affirms and supports the University’s critical role in medical education, research discovery and clinical care and brings the stability needed to build a long-term solution to meet Minnesota’s most pressing health and healthcare needs. 

The University is one of a handful of public universities that works across all the health sciences—medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, public health and veterinary—to deliver research, education and care. This includes 887 active clinical trials across a range of conditions and diseases, training 70 percent of Minnesota's health care professionals and serving 1 million patients—including Minnesotans from all 87 counties.

Before joining the University of Minnesota, President Cunningham served as the Vice President for Research and Innovation at the University of Michigan, where she was responsible for expanding its annual research portfolio to a record $2 billion. At Michigan, she led a university-wide strategy that bolstered discovery and impact across three campuses, accelerated knowledge translation, supported entrepreneurial activity, expanded statewide economic development and advanced undergraduate student success.

A renowned expert in public health, President Cunningham was inducted in the National Academy of Medicine in 2019. She holds a medical doctorate from Jefferson Medical College, and she completed her residency in emergency medicine at the University of Michigan. 

President Cunningham resides in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her husband, Ken, and their dogs Charlie and Olive. They have five grown children. With a long history of family members living in the Twin Cities, President Cunningham considered Minnesota her second home years before her presidency began. For more than 30 years now, her family has participated in YMCA family camp, canoed the Boundary Waters and enjoyed trips to the Walker Art Center, the Guthrie Theater, the Bell Museum and Minnesota State Fair—experiences that deepened her early connection to Minnesota.