Terri Goss Kinzy Ph.D. serves as the 20th President of Illinois State University. She started her career at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) rising to professor in the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Pediatrics. At Rutgers, Dr. Kinzy served as Vice President for Research. Dr. Kinzy then joined Western Michigan University in 2018 as Vice President of Research and Innovation and Professor of Biological Sciences. Previously Dr. Kinzy was elected to the University Master Educator Guild, selected as a Bridges to the Professoriate Faculty Mentor of the Year from the Compact for Faculty Diversity, and named a Crain’s Detroit Notable Woman in STEM. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her mentoring of others has been recognized with the New Jersey Association for Biomedical Research Outstanding Mentor Award and the R. Walter Schlesinger Basic Science Mentoring Award. Dr. Kinzy is recognized as a world leader in the study of protein synthesis. Her work has been funded by numerous sponsors including the NIH, the NSF as a CAREER Award recipient, the Human Frontiers Science Program, and numerous foundations and corporations.