Ana Mari Cauce

Cauce was born in Havana, Cuba, to Vincente Cauce Carrazana, minister of education under Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, and Ana Cauce (née Vivanco). When she was three years old, her family fled the island during the Cuban Revolution. She grew up in Miami, Florida, where her father, who held a PhD, worked first as a custodian. Eventually both parents worked in a shoe factory. Her older brother César, a graduate of Duke University and a member of the Communist Workers Party, was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan and National Socialist Party of America in the 1979 Greensboro Massacre.

Cauce received a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, with a major in English from the University of Miami in 1977. She received a Master of Science in 1979, a Master of Philosophy in 1982, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1984, all in psychology from Yale University.

Her doctoral studies concentrated on child clinical and community psychology. Her doctoral advisor at Yale University was Edmund Gordon.

Cauce began her teaching career as a lecturer at the University of Delaware. In 1986, she moved to Seattle to work as an associate professor at the University of Washington, where she gained tenure in 1990. In 1996, she was named chair of the American Ethnic Studies department. Cauce then was appointed the Director of the Honors Program. She later became Dean of the University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences. In 2007, Cauce helped launch The Husky Promise, a tuition-funding program at the university. In 2012, she became Provost of the University of Washington.

On October 13, 2015, Cauce was appointed as the 33rd president of the University of Washington by the Board of Regents. She had served as interim president since March 2015, when her predecessor Michael Young announced his departure. She is the first permanent female president and the first person of Hispanic ethnicity to hold the position. In 2017, the university settled a public records lawsuit related to the selection of Cauce. Cauce was elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.

On June 12, 2024, Cauce announced that she would step down from the presidency in June 2025. On February 3, 2025, the University of Washington Board of Regents announced that Robert J. Jones, who was then serving as the 10th chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, would succeed Cauce, effective August 1, 2025.

Cauce is married to Susan Joslyn, her partner since 1989. Both are professors in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington.