Emily F. Cutrer was appointed interim president of Sonoma State University beginning on August 1, 2024. She will remain in that position for approximately 12 months while the CSU Board of Trustees conducts a national search for the university's next regularly appointed president.

Over her nearly 40-year career in higher education, Cutrer has held multiple roles across a wide range of public institutions.

Cutrer served as the president of Texas A&M University-Texarkana for more than 10 years before retiring in 2023 with the title of president emerita. From 2006 to 2013, she was the provost and vice president for academic affairs at California State University San Marcos.

Prior to her roles at A&M Texarkana and CSU San Marcos, Cutrer served as dean of the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University West, where she established the college's first community advisory board and alumni board and established a summer bridge program for community college transfer students, as well as the development of first-year programming. Cutrer's higher education career began at the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a faculty member in the Department of American Studies from 1986 to 1990. In her work, she has focused on expansion of academic programming to meet community needs, development of student success programming, and steady increases in enrollment, persistence and graduation rates.

Cutrer earned a bachelor's degree in American studies, and a master's and Ph.D. in American civilization from the University of Texas at Austin.​​