Susan Gooden

Susan Tinsley Gooden, Ph.D., is dean and professor at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). She is an internationally renowned scholar in the area of social equity. Her books include Racial Equity, COVID, and Public Policy: The Triple Pandemic (forthcoming), Global Equity in Administration: Nervous Areas of Governments, Race and Social Equity: A Nervous Area of Government, Why Research Methods Matter, and Cultural Competency for Public Administrators. She has received numerous awards including a Fulbright Specialist Award, the Charles H. Levine Memorial Award for Excellence in Public Administration, the Jewel Prestage Pioneer Award, and the Herbert Simon Best Book Award presented by the American Political Science Association.

Within the broader community, she serves on the executive boards of numerous nonprofit and public sector organizations. She is president of the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA), the world’s leading accreditor of master’s degree programs in public affairs, a past president of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), and a fellow of the congressionally chartered National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). Within Virginia, her contributions include gubernatorial appointments to the boards of the Virginia Retirement System and the Virginia Community College System.