President Goldsmith Inducted into Silicon Valley Engineering Council Hall of Fame

Stony Brook University President Andrea Goldsmith has been inducted into the Silicon Valley Engineering Council (SVEC) Hall of Fame, recognizing her outstanding professional achievements in engineering and technology, and for significant contributions to the engineering community.

The 36th Annual Hall of Fame Ceremony and Awards took place last month in Santa Clara, California. Goldsmith was inducted alongside R. Fabian Pease, the William E. Ayer Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emeritus at Stanford University.

"It is an incredible honor to be inducted into the Silicon Valley Hall of Fame given what this place has meant to me," Goldsmith said at the induction ceremony, noting that it is where she completed her undergraduate studies at the University of California Berkeley, started her career as an engineer, obtained two graduate degrees, spent 21 years at Stanford, started two wireless companies, met her husband of 32 years, Arturo Ganz, and raised two children.

"Throughout that time I had the honor and privilege to engage with teachers, mentors, collaborators, lifelong friends and students who changed the course of my life," Goldsmith continued. "The Bay Area has shaped my life professionally and personally in ways that are more joyous, more magical and more transformative than I ever could have imagined."

Goldsmith, Stony Brook's seventh president, has forged a remarkable career as an educator, academic leader and innovator. Prior to coming to Stony Brook in August 2025, she served as Princeton's dean of engineering for five years and spent 21 years on Stanford's engineering faculty. As a researcher and entrepreneur, she developed core technology underpinning WiFi and cellular communications. She has authored or co-authored four books, hundreds of research papers and 38 patents, and proudly mentored generations of students and postdocs.

Goldsmith explained that one of the most exciting things that attracted her to Stony Brook was that she saw in it, and its surrounding region of Long Island, the same potential that Stanford's visionary engineering dean, Fred Terman, saw in Stanford and "The Valley of Heart's Delight," as Silicon Valley was previously named.

"Stony Brook today, like Stanford in the 1950s, is known as a great regional school for research, education, and healthcare, but that is because our many great accomplishments are not widely known, something I aim to change as Stony Brook's #1 storyteller," said Goldsmith, who credited fellow SVEC Hall of Famer, former Stanford President and Stony Brook Distinguished Alumnus John L. Hennessy - a longtime mentor who was the first person she called about the presidency - with convincing her to apply for the position.

Hennessy will participate in Inauguration Week in a conversation with Goldsmith on Friday, April 17, a "fireside chat" about leadership, institutional transformation and the future of higher education. "

"I am so honored that John will be part of this special day for me, intertwining Stanford and Stony Brook, Silicon Valley and Long Island," Goldsmith said, calling Hennessy "the most impactful and inspiring university president and leader of his generation."

Pease, this year's other inductee, is the William E. Ayer Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emeritus at Stanford University, an emeritus member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). His career, at U.C. Berkeley, Bell Labs and Stanford University, centered on making things, primarily silicon chips, denser, faster and more energy efficient.