Susan L. Parish, PhD, MSW

Susan L. Parish, Ph.D., M.S.W. is the president of Mercy University.

Parish previously served as dean of the College of Health Professions and Sentara Professor of Health Administration at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Under her leadership, the College of Health Professions at VCU experienced significant increases in graduate and undergraduate enrollment, and research funding.

Prior to joining VCU, Parish served as dean of Bouvé College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University. She was also the inaugural Nancy Lurie Marks Professor of Disability Policy and directed the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University. She began her academic career as an assistant professor of social work at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Over the course of her career, President Parish has been a prolific researcher primarily investigating the health and well-being of children and adults with disabilities and their caregiving families. She has garnered more than $13 million in external research funding from a range of federal, state, and foundation sources. She has received awards for her teaching, mentoring and research, including: “Research Matters!” Distinguished Research Award, Arc of the United States (2009), Advocate Hero, Exceptional Parent Magazine (2021), Lifetime Achievement Award, American Public Health Association Disability Section (2021) and Research Award, American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2019). Parish is a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and she is also a Fellow of the Society of Social Work and Research.

Parish serves on the boards of The Business Council of Westchester, the Westchester County Association, The Bronx Economic Development Corporation, and the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, where she is on the Board of Trustees’ Finance & Administrative Committee.

Parish earned her BA in English Literature and her MSW from Rutgers University and earned her PhD in Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She completed a National Institutes of Health-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to her career as a professor, she ran residential programs for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in New Jersey and New York

Dr. Parish’s disability, health, and poverty policy expertise is widely sought. She has testified in state and federal lawsuits, and she has been quoted by PBS NewsHour, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, Psychology Today, and the Huffington Post.