Two Women Scholars Appointed to Endowed Chairs at Educational Institutions in Boston

Kirsten Davison is the second scholar to be named the Donahue and DiFelice Professor at the Boston College School of Social Work. She is also the associate dean for research at the School of Social Work. Most recently, her research has focused on the development and evaluation of family-centered interventions for obesity prevention in low-income children

Prior to joining the faculty at Boston College, Professor Davison spent eight years at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she was an associate professor and director of the school’s Public Health Nutrition doctoral program. She also has been on the faculty of the School of Public Health of the University at Albany of the State University of New York System.

A native of New Zealand, Dr. Davison earned her bachelor’s degree at Otago University. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in human development and family studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Susan Brady was appointed to the Deloitte-Ellen Gabriel Chair for Women and Leadership at Simmons University in Boston. The chair is named in honor of Ellen Gabriel, a partner at Deloitte who led their company’s national initiative for the retention and advancement of women in the early 1990s. She passed away from breast cancer in 1999.

Since March 2019, Dr. Brady has served as managing director and chief executive officer of the university’s Institute for Inclusive Leadership. She formerly served as executive vice president of Linkage Inc., a worldwide leadership development firm specializing in consulting, training, organizational assessments, executive coaching, and immersive learning experiences. Her latest book is Mastering Your Inner Critic and 7 Other High Hurdles to Advancement: How the Best Women Leaders Practice Self-Awareness to Change What Really Matters (McGraw-Hill, 2018).

Brady is a graduate of Marietta College in Ohio, where she majored in business communications. She holds a master’s degree in educational leadership from Ohio University.