Karen Patricia "Pat" Pitney (née Spurgin; born August 10, 1965) is an American university administrator, former Alaska state government official, and Olympic gold medalist.

[19] However, on January 31, 2022, the chair of the University of Alaska Board of Regents, Sherri Buretta, proposed that the pending recruitment be cancelled and that Pitney be appointed as permanent president, effective immediately.

[20] Although faculty, student and staff governance groups all protested their exclusion from the decision-making process,[21] the Board of Regents unanimously accepted the proposal on February 25; Buretta noted that Pitney was the first woman to hold the University of Alaska presidency as a permanent position.

[22] Pitney inherited an ongoing downsizing of the university system in response to a three-year program of scheduled reductions in financial support from the state of Alaska.

[25] Pitney reported in early 2023 that in the previous year the University of Alaska system had "reached the highest level ever of externally funded research".

[27] The Pitney administration's academic focus has been on programs which directly benefit the Alaska economy, such as alternative energy, marine farming, health care education, heavy oil recovery, mining of critical minerals, and development of drone aircraft applications.