J. “Luke” Wood

President of California State University, Sacramento

Luke Wood was appointed Sacramento State’s ninth president in May 2023. Prior to his appointment, Wood served as a key leader driving transformational change in the areas of student success, enrollment and campus diversity at San Diego State, as the university’s chief diversity officer and vice president for Student Affairs and Campus Diversity.

Wood joined San Diego State in 2011 as a professor and in 2012 was named co-director of the Community College Equity Assessment Lab, a research and practice center focused on reducing equity gaps between students of color and their peers. In 2017, he became the first Black faculty member to be named a Distinguished Professor at SDSU, while serving as a professor in the Department of Administration, Rehabilitation and Postsecondary Education.

In 2023, Wood was appointed by the California State Senate to serve on the newly established California Racial Equity Commission, which works to promote racial equity and address structural racism across the state.