About Denise A. Battles

Dr. Battles’ appointment marks a return to familiar territory for the Oswego County native and Colgate University alumna. Prior to her arrival at Geneseo, she was the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Previously, Battles served as Dean of the College of Natural and Health Sciences and Professor of Geology at the University of Northern Colorado. This followed her position as Associate Dean of the Paulson College of Science and Technology and Professor of Geology at Georgia Southern University.

Biosketch of Denise A. Battles

Dr. Denise A. Battles is President of SUNY Geneseo, a role she has held since July 1, 2015.  A native of Oswego County in Central New York, Dr. Battles graduated from Paul V. Moore High School (Central Square, NY) in 1981.  She received her baccalaureate degree in geology from Colgate University (Hamilton, NY) in 1984 and her Ph.D. in geology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1990. 

Dr. Battles served as a geology faculty member in the Department of Geology and Geography at Georgia Southern University from 1990 to 2005.  In 1994, she moved into the first of several administrative roles, eventually serving as Assistant Dean and later Associate Dean in that institution’s Allen E. Paulson College of Science and Technology.  During the 2000-01 academic year, she served at Auburn University as an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow, where she was mentored by former Auburn President William V. Muse.  In 2005, she was recruited to be the first (founding) Dean of the College of Natural and Health Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado.  She held that position until 2012, when she was named Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, leaving that role to assume the presidency at SUNY Geneseo. 

In addition to her faculty and administrative appointments, Dr. Battles has held leadership positions in multiple higher education associations.  Her roles have included President of the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (2008-09), a national organization serving academic deans of arts and sciences, and Vice President and President-Elect of the Association of Chief Academic Officers (2014-15), an entity for which she was a co-founder.  During her Geneseo presidency, she has served as Chair of the Board of the ACE Council of Fellows, the alumni organization for the ACE Fellows program; President of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC), an international consortium of public higher education institutions with liberal arts-centered missions; and President of the Rochester Area Colleges (RAC), an association of 19 higher education entities in the greater Rochester, NY area.  Dr. Battles has also served on the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), and the Board of the ACE Council of Fellows.  She continues to serve on the COPLAC Board of Directors.  Dr. Battles has an ongoing scholarly interest in science education and STEM gender equity issues and has been Primary Investigator / Project Director for multiple grants through the National Science Foundation, including a collaborative project supported through NSF's ADVANCE program.  Related to those interests, she previously served for six years (2011-16) on the editorial board of the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, a publication of the American Psychological Association and the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education.

Dr. Battles has been married since 1995 to Dr. Michael T. Mills.

View Denise A. Battles' CV