Taylor Eighmy, PhD, is the president of The University of Texas at San Antonio (UT San Antonio) and is the inaugural holder of the Carlos Alvarez Distinguished Presidential Chair. Now the third-largest research university in Texas and a nationally recognized, Carnegie R1-designated institution and Carnegie Opportunity University, UT San Antonio includes the UT San Antonio Health Science Center — South Texas’s only academic health center and the region’s leading producer of health professionals — as well as UT Health San Antonio, an expansive clinical practice with more than 1,500 providers serving patients across the region.
Under Eighmy’s leadership, UT San Antonio serves over 42,000 students with 17,000 employees — including more than 4,000 faculty. The institution offers more than 350 highly competitive degrees and certificates and has $486 million in annual research expenditures, a $2.4 billion-dollar budget, a $1.3 billion endowment and a $7B annual economic impact.
Eighmy is passionate about the critical role that research universities play in creating and applying knowledge to improve the world. He believes deeply in higher education as a great opportunity provider, especially when grounded in student success. More so, he is a vigorous advocate for experiential learning—including undergraduate research—as foundational to such success.
Since arriving to San Antonio in 2017, Eighmy has made great strides toward linking educational attainment to the city’s economic development. Under his leadership, the university has produced more graduates than ever before, driving job creation and growing the city's knowledge economy. He is nationally recognized for advancing top research universities through strategic government-university-industry collaborations, public-private partnerships and community engagement. These principles are at the heart of his conviction that UT San Antonio is “the university of the future in the city of the future.”
Prior to his appointment by the UT System Board of Regents to serve as the inaugural president of UT San Antonio, he served eight years as the president of UTSA. Before then, Eighmy served as the chief research officer at three top public flagship universities: the University of New Hampshire (UNH), Texas Tech University (TTU), and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK).
