Tiffiny Butler
As the Vice Chancellor for Access and Community Engagement at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, Tiffiny Butler, Ph.D., ATC, leads efforts to promote respect, mutual understanding, and pathways to success for our Rutgers—New Brunswick community. This includes expanding the RU-NB infrastructure and supporting central and locally enacted community engagement initiatives.
Dr. Butler, a native of South Jersey, comes to her role after nearly two decades working in higher education. She brings both experience and a deep personal commitment to student access and community engagement in the state. Since joining Rutgers in 2021, she has served as Associate Vice Chancellor for Educational Equity and, most recently, as Interim Vice Chancellor for the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement. In these roles, she has worked to ensure that students have access to the academic, social, and cultural resources essential for their success and well-being. Additionally, she led the integration and implementation of the Community Engagement Pillar of the Academic Master Plan while spearheading Phase 2 efforts of the Diversity Strategic Plan, including engaging the DSP Working Group to host the Rutgers–New Brunswick Progress Showcase.
Her leadership and commitment to the community span both her personal and professional life. As a former Big Brother Big Sister MySTEM Advisory Board member and serving on the Girls Inc. of Worcester Board of Directors, her values and purpose align in supporting student access and developing reciprocal, sustainable partnerships with community organizations. Currently, she serves as the Rutgers University liaison for the American Talent Initiative, an organization that seeks to substantially expand access and opportunity for talented, low- and moderate-income students at the nation's colleges. This experience informed her work serving on the Rutgers University-Wide Task Force for Civic Engagement and stewarding the successful Carnegie Self-Study and reaffirmation submission (awarded January 2026).
Her research career spanned numerous peer-reviewed publications and over a million dollars in grant funding, including serving as Principal Investigator for a National Science Foundation-funded project, "Connecting Mentor Partners for Academic Success" in 2019. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Journal of Pediatric Orthopedics), and she has presented extensively at national, state, and university conferences. In pursuit of scholarship and service, she has received several honors, including: induction into the 2025 Class of Temple University Gallery of Success for the College of Health Professions, a 2023 RU-NB Community Partner Award for Upward Bound-Math Science UBMS, the 2021 Class of the Worcester Business Journal: 40 under 40, the 2020 Denise Nicoletti Trustees Award for service to the community, the 2020 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Best Diversity Paper – Diversity Interest Group, 2018 Teacher of the year: Biomedical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Butler is an alumna of the prestigious leadership programs: HERS Leadership Institute, the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Institute for Management in Higher Education and the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership program, and the Rutgers University OneRED: High Impact Leadership Program.
Dr. Butler completed a postdoctoral fellowship in biomedical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2016 after receiving her master's and doctoral degrees in Kinesiology (Athletic Training, Integrative Exercise Physiology) from Temple University, with her research interests focused on skeletal and bone biomechanics.