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Dr. Rebecca J. Stoltzfus

Dr. Rebecca J. Stoltzfus

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  • Portrait of Pope Leo XIV
    Blogs

    An urgent word from the Pope

    Oct 14 2025

    Last week Pope Leo XIV issued his first major writing to the global Catholic church, an Apostolic Exhortation – an urgent word of encouragement – on love for the poor, Dilexi Te. As a Mennonite, this theme caught my attention. 

  • artwork of Balbir Singh Sodhi
    Blogs

    ‘Even in darkness, ever-rising joy’

    Sep 15 2025

    We have experienced another hard week of gun violence in America. For me, it has been a week of intense emotions – heavy emotions as well as joy and hope. How do we escape the doom loop? How do we stop partaking when it is dished up to us from all sides of the media and culture that we swim in?

  • Man in suit and tie and woman talking next to piano
    Blogs

    My 17-year-old self

    Aug 25 2025

    Marvin Blickenstaff was my piano professor at Goshen when I began as a first-year student in the fall of 1979. Seeing him, and listening to his teaching and performance, transported me back to my 17-year-old self – a strange and vivid experience that was both disorienting and orienting.

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    B.A., Goshen College
    M.A., Cornell University
    Ph.D., Cornell University

    president@goshen.edu
    (574) 535-7180

    President Rebecca J. Stoltzfus became the 18th president of Goshen College in 2017 and was reappointed for a second term in 2021.

    A 1983 Goshen College graduate, President Stoltzfus was vice provost for undergraduate education and professor of human nutrition at Cornell University before returning to lead her alma mater.

    A distinguished academic career

    President Stoltzfus studied chemistry at Goshen College and received master’s and doctoral degrees in human nutrition from Cornell University. Before joining the Cornell faculty in 2002, she taught human nutrition at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Baltimore, Maryland) — the top-ranked school of public health in the United States.

    As a vice provost at Cornell, President Stoltzfus oversaw initiatives designed to enhance undergraduate instruction and campus efforts to support inclusivity and academic success for all 14,000-plus undergraduate students. She was part of the leadership team of Engaged Cornell, a university-wide public engagement initiative.

    Global health researcher

    As a professor, President Stoltzfus collaborated to create Cornell’s Global Health Program, which offers community-engaged learning opportunities for undergraduate students working on global health issues with partners in Tanzania, Zambia, the Dominican Republic and in two sites in India. The programs are based on reciprocity and partnership, and have generated innovative models for educating Cornell students and local students as partners in service projects, research and policy case studies.

    President Stoltzfus’ research focuses on the causes and consequences of malnutrition in women and children in low-income countries, especially the integration of direct nutrition interventions with intersectoral strategies such as infectious disease control, food safety and reproductive health. She has over 150 peer-reviewed scientific publications, with collaborative research projects ongoing in Zimbabwe, Tanzania and India.

    She has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences Food and Nutrition Board, associate editor of the Journal of Nutrition, president of the Society for International Nutrition Research, member of the National Academy of Sciences Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally and is a fellow of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences. She has served as a member of two World Health Organization’s Expert Advisory Panels, for Nutrition and Parasitology, and is a recipient of several awards from the American Society for Nutrition for excellence in international nutrition research.

    Family

    President Stoltzfus is married to Kevin W. Miller, a 1985 Goshen College graduate with bachelor’s degrees in biology and nursing, and a master’s degree in public health from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has worked as a nurse, a public health practitioner, a community health researcher and a church administrator. They are parents of two young adults, Lydia ’18 and Gabe Miller ’20. Her parents are alums Victor and Marie Stoltzfus of Goshen, and her father was president of Goshen College from 1984 to 1996.

    Singing, cooking and hiking are among President Stoltzfus’ hobbies.

    “Oriented to Love”: 2025 Faith Formation White Paper

    President Stoltzfus’ Blog

    Speeches

    News coverage, op-eds and presidential statements

    Alumni magazine (The Bulletin) columns: From the president

    Read more Goshen College news about President Stoltzfus.