Francine Newsome Pfeiffer

Francine Newsome Pfeiffer is the Senior Vice President for Government Relations at Rutgers. She directs the University’s Office of Federal Relations in Washington, DC, where she has worked for more than 20 years. She and her staff represent the University on a wide variety of federal appropriations and policy issues, including those impacting student aid programs, institutional governance, research and innovation, immigration, and tax and regulatory matters. The office works closely with the New Jersey congressional delegation and national associations of higher education, and also facilitates University engagement with federal funding agencies. Ms. Pfeiffer and her staff collaborate with administrators, faculty, staff, and students from across the institution to advance the University’s federal interests. 

Ms. Pfeiffer has served in a variety of leadership roles in the higher education community in Washington, including chair of the Council on Government Affairs at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, an association representing more than 200 public universities in North America. She has also served as chair of the Council on Federal Relations Steering Committee at the Association of American Universities (AAU), the association of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. At the AAU, she has also chaired working groups on the humanities and higher education/student aid. She is a frequent speaker at national higher education meetings on federal policies affecting higher education and on effective University engagement with Congress.

Ms. Pfeiffer is a New Jersey native and a Rutgers graduate. She began her career in Washington with a White House internship with the Domestic Policy Council.  She then worked briefly for the Washington Workshops Foundation, an educational foundation in Georgetown, before joining Rutgers’ federal relations staff.  Ms. Pfeiffer resides in Annapolis, MD, with her husband and two children.