Office of the President

On January 24, 2023, Mercy University announced the selection of Susan L. Parish, Ph.D., M.S.W. as the 13th president of Mercy University. Currently Dean of the College of Health Professions and Sentara Professor of Health Administration at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Dr. Parish will join Mercy University as President on July 1, 2023.

Under Dr. Parish’s leadership, the College of Health Professions at VCU has experienced significant increases in graduate and undergraduate enrollment, and research funding. Under her leadership, the College also launched an innovative liberal arts undergraduate degree in Health Services in 2020 and developed new certificate programs and graduate concentrations. 

Prior to joining VCU, Dr. Parish served as dean of Bouvé College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University, where she developed a Physician Assistant leadership program – the first in country – jointly with the American Academy of Physician Assistants. 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, Dr. 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 distinctions 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). Dr. 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.

Dr. Parish earned her B.A. in English Literature and her M.S.W. from Rutgers University and earned her Ph.D. 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.

She enjoys travel, art, theater, and kayaking, and is an enthusiastic amateur potter.