She is now a professor of molecular biology and public policy and president emerita of Princeton University.
In 2002, Discover magazine recognized her as one of the 50 most important women in science.Tilghman was the 19th president of Princeton University; she was the first woman to hold the position and the second female president in the Ivy League.
Tilghman was also the first biologist to hold the Princeton presidency.
She is the fifth "foreign-born" president of Princeton, and the second academic born in Canada to be elected to the position.
A leader in the field of molecular biology, Tilghman was a member of the Princeton faculty for fifteen years before being named president.
She has returned to the Princeton faculty as a professor of molecular biology.
In that capacity, she has returned to the Lewis-Sigler Institute of Integrative Genomics as a faculty member; while she is not currently engaged in research, Tilghman actively advises undergraduates in their independent research, including the senior thesis for seniors.Tilghman also continues to hold leadership positions in the global scientific community.