Heidi Macpherson

Dr. Heidi Macpherson is the 7th President of SUNY Brockport. Dr. Macpherson received her B.A. (Summa Cum Laude) in English and Creative Writing from St. Cloud State University (1990) and her Ph.D. in North American literature from the University of Newcastle (1996). Originally from Minnesota, she emigrated to the United Kingdom in the summer of 1990 and became a US-UK dual national in 2003.

She began her academic career at the University of Central Lancashire, in Preston, England, teaching American literature, women’s literature, creative writing and drama (1995-2007). In 2007 she was appointed Dean of Humanities at De Montfort University (Leicester, England) and subsequently held two different Pro Vice-Chancellor positions there. In 2012, she became the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, a position she held for three years prior to becoming president at SUNY Brockport.

She serves on a number of local volunteer boards, including the United Way of Greater Rochester (2018-), Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce (2019-), Willow Domestic Violence Center (2017-), and Roc the Future Board of Convenors (2017-). Nationally, she sits on the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) Committee on International Education. She is former chair of the Rochester Area Colleges Presidents Network and recently served on the Board of the YWCA of Rochester and Monroe County (2017-21).

Dr. Macpherson is a member of Rotary International and currently chairs the Rotary Membership Evaluation Committee. Prior to moving to Brockport, she was on the board of directors for The Maastricht Center for Transatlantic Studies, The Netherlands (1997-2007); the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society, Leicester, UK (2008-10); The Phoenix Square Film and Digital Media Centre; Leicester, UK (2008-10); Bethany Lutheran Homes, La Crosse, WI (2014-15); and La Crosse Medical Health Science Consortium, La Crosse, WI (2015). She also sat on the YWCA Program Committee, La Crosse, WI (2013-15).

While in the UK, Dr. Macpherson held a number of positions on national education and professional bodies, including Chair of the British Association for American Studies; Executive Committee member for the Council for College and University English and the British Association for Canadian Studies; and member of the Quality Assurance Agency Benchmark Steering Group. She was the Vice Chair of the Research Assessment Exercise subpanel for American Studies for the national research assessment exercise in 2008, and was appointed to the Area Studies Research Excellence Framework for the replacement national research exercise for 2013. In 2007 she was elected as a Fellow of both the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and the UK Higher Education Academy. In 2010, she became a Fellow of the English Association. She was a key member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Research and Innovation committee (2010-12).

Her research is on contemporary transatlantic and North American women’s literature. She is the author of Women’s Movement (2000), Courting Failure (2007), Transatlantic Women’s Literature (2008), and The Cambridge Introduction to Margaret Atwood (2010). She has also co-edited two collections of essays and a 3-volume encyclopedia set.

She is married to Dr. Allan Macpherson. In her spare time, she enjoys theatre, going to the cinema, hiking, creative writing, and walking her Springer Spaniels, Tilly and Rosie. Her most unusual talent is being able to ride a unicycle.