Susan M. Collins is the Edward M. Gramlich Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, professor of economics, and former dean of the Ford School (2007-17), as well as former provost and executive vice president for academic affairs (2020-22). Before coming to Michigan, she was on the economics faculty at Georgetown University and Harvard University, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (where she retains a nonresident affiliation). She is an international economist whose research interests center on understanding and fostering economic growth in industrial, emerging market, and developing countries. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She served a term as president of the Association for Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA) from 2013-15 and, earlier in her career, as a senior staff economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Collins received her bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, in economics from Harvard University and her doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Of Jamaican descent, Dr. Collins grew up in the United States and became a U.S. citizen in 1997.
Collins is currently on leave from the Ford School, serving as the CEO and president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.