Dr. Samuel Stanley Jr., speaks at a Michigan State University Board of Trustees meeting in East Lansing, Mich., Tuesday, May 28, 2019. Stanley, a medical researcher who has led Stony Brook University in New York for nearly a decade, was named Tuesday as the next president of Michigan State University in the wake of the most extensive sexual abuse scandal in sports history. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

EAST LANSING — Dr. Samuel Stanley Jr., a medical researcher who has led Stony Brook University in New York for nearly a decade, was named Tuesday as the next president of Michigan State University in the wake of the most extensive sexual abuse scandal in sports history.

Stanley was chosen in an 8-0 vote by the school’s board of trustees, effective Aug. 1. He will take charge of a 50,000-student university that has been led by a string of acting or interim presidents since the January 2018 resignation of Lou Anna Simon, who quit amid fallout over former campus doctor Larry Nassar’s molestation of hundreds of female gymnasts and other athletes under the guise of treatment.

“Dr. Stanley is an empowering, compassionate and thoughtful leader, who will work tirelessly alongside our students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees and broader Spartan community to meet the challenges we face together and build our future,” said board president Dianne Byrum, who co-chaired the presidential search committee.

Since 2009, the 65-year-old Stanley has been president of the 26,000-student Stony Brook on Long Island, a part of the State University of New York. He previously was vice chancellor for research at Washington University in St. Louis, where he first did a fellowship in infectious diseases and became a professor. He earned his medical degree from Harvard and completed a residency in Boston.

Stanley pledged to meet with Nassar’s victims and their families and, noting his background as a physician, said the “terrible tragedy” was a “gross and incomprehensible betrayal of trust.”

“What happened at MSU will not be forgotten,” he said. “Instead it will drive us every day to work together to build a campus culture of transparency, awareness, sensitivity, respect and prevention. A safe campus is going to be key to all of our initiatives.”

Stanley will be the fourth man to lead the school since Simon stepped down. She now faces charges of lying to police about what she knew during an investigation into a sex assault allegation against Nassar, who also worked at USA Gymnastics and treated Olympians. The university’s former gymnastics coach and dean of the osteopathic medicine school also have been charged criminally.

Following Simon’s departure, board vice president Bill Beekman briefly served as acting president before the February 2018 hiring of former Michigan Gov. John Engler as interim president. He helped to broker a $500 million settlement with victims but was ousted amid backlash over his comments about some of Nassar’s victims.