About Susanna

Susanna Cooper uses her expertise in education policy, vision-setting, leadership development, project initiation and management, legislative strategy, philanthropy and communications to help organizations improve public education for California. Her projects span early education and care, K-12 education and community colleges.

Susanna is the founding Executive Director of Wheelhouse: The Center for Community College Leadership and Research, a nonprofit institute at the University of California, Davis, School of Education. She is Special Advisor to the Stuart Foundation, a San Francisco-based philanthropy focused on education and child well-being. She serves as president of the Board of Directors of the nonprofit EdSource and as a director of the James B. McClatchy Foundation, and consults to select clients in the education and child welfare arenas.

Previously, Susanna was senior education policy advisor to Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg. Her work at the intersection of policy, politics and pragmatism has produced major public policy change impacting public education. Legislative initiatives she led include creation of the $500-million Career Pathways Trust; expansion of and quality improvement in the California State Preschool Program; creation of the expert commission that led to California’s adoption of the Common Core Standards; and improvements in public school accountability, reducing the over-reliance on test scores and increasing the focus on graduation rates and measures of college and career readiness.

In addition, Susanna has served as visiting journalist at the Public Policy Institute of California and as director of communications for a nonprofit organization focused on early education. Previously, she was a writer, editor and editorial board member at the Sacramento Bee, where she was responsible for the newspaper’s editorial positions on public schools and children’s issues. Early in her career, she covered politics and Parliament for the Prague Post.

Susanna has been recognized by Early Edge California for her legislative accomplishments in early childhood education, by the California Association of School Counselors for her successful work to change the accountability system for public high schools, and by Youth Acting Together for giving voice to the needs of teenagers in the Sacramento region.

She lives in Sacramento. She and her husband, Eric Douglas, have four grown children and five grandchildren.

For more information about Susanna’s professional experience, check out her profile on LinkedIn.