Dr. Susan Kelly became the eighth President and the first female to lead Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science when she took up the position on May 1, 2006.  An Australian, she earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Melbourne, after her graduate degree in Education from the University of Canberra, and her undergraduate degree in Psychology and English Literature from the University of Tasmania.  In 1998, she was recruited to the United States to become Dean, Associate Provost and a tenured Full Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (CWM). There she led the School of Continuing Education’s successful financial and programmatic transformation.

In 2004, she left UWM to become University Provost at Argosy University, a national 13 campus largely graduate university. Before coming to the Charles Drew University, Dr. Kelly was Vice President for higher Education and Business Partnerships at the Chicago-based, Council of Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL), a national non-profit organization committed to the advancement of adult and working students.

In Australia, Dr. Kelly was elected President of the Australian Psychological Society and served from 1991-1992. There she led her first organizational turnaround. Prior to this, from 1987-1991 she oversaw the accreditation of all psychology programs in Australia. In 1989, she left a 13-year career as a member of the research and teaching faculty of Melbourne State College, now within the University of Melbourne, and Swinburne University of Technology, to become a Senior Management Consultant with a U.S. international consulting firm, Development Dimensions International.  From 1994 until her arrival in the U.S., she was General Manager at the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne, leading its recovery as a major provider of adult and continuing education in Australia. Dr. Kelly has also had a 30-year parallel career as a radio and television psychologist and commentator. She has had three successful books and numerous chapters and articles published in the scientific and mainstream presses.

Dr. Susan Kelly is the proud mother of twin daughters who have just completed their first year of college: Petra at Duke University and Stephanie at Cornell University.

In August of 2007, she married Dr. Drew Allbritten, formerly a reformer in the Michigan legislator and a U.S. Presidential appointee on Intergovernmental Relations and Economic Development in Washington, D.C.