A clinical psychologist by training, McNair’s research focuses on the development and assessment of community-based interventions on substance use and early sexual behavior in African-American youth. She was appointed the first female president of Tuskegee University in July 2018. Prior to joining Tuskegee, she was provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Wagner College and served as the second-ranking executive since 2011. McNair also was an associate provost of research and divisional coordinator for science and mathematics at Spelman College, as associate professor of psychology and associate director of the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Training Program at the University of Georgia and worked on the faculty of The State University of New York at New Paltz. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. McNair’s current research interests include analyzing the role of stress in female college students’ level of alcohol consumption and the dyadic nature of alcohol use and sexual risk-taking. She is the co-editor of Women: Images and Realities, an introductory multicultural women’s studies textbook.
