University of Washington Provost and Executive Vice President Ana Mari Cauce holds a photo of herself when she was three years old of her and her older brother César Cauce from 1959 on their last day in Havana, Cuba before they left Cuba permanently for the United States.

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Annie Zak
Staff Writer- Puget Sound Business Journal

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If University of Washington Provost and Executive Vice President Ana Mari Cauce took over as president when Michael Young leaves in the spring to lead Texas AM University, UW's direction wouldn't change much.

Because she's worked so closely with Young, Cauce said, she shares his priorities for UW. Those include commercialization, a commitment to access for students from all income levels and maintaining a top-tier rural medical education program.

"We're not changing course. We're not going in a different direction," she said. "We have a shared vision. And I don't just mean President Young and I, but the senior leadership team. ... There's no decision that's been made here that I haven't been a part of. In some ways, it's the same job."

So she doesn't want a major shift. But her focus on social justice and her background, vastly different than Young's, would bring a change in leadership style.

Cauce comes from a family that fled Cuba in exile in 1959 after the communist revolution. In Miami, her family had to start over in a lower economic bracket, and she pushed through college at the University of Miami in three years instead of four in an effort to keep her debt down.

She holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, a field that requires videotaping of clinical sessions while a student is earning a degree. As a result of years spent watching herself on tape interacting with others, she cultivated a sense of self-awareness and reflection she thinks she wouldn't have otherwise.

"When you're in this kind of leadership position, you're constantly with people in high-stakes situations, and what you say and how you say it matters," Cauce said. "We are our own instruments. And I'm probably more familiar with this instrument than I would have been if I wasn't a clinical psychologist."

Annie Zak covers the health care and biotechnology industries.