Jennifer Shea
Office Hours
Dr. Shea holds Zoom and in-person office hours each semester. Check the student-facing PACE Canvas site for the current semester schedule or email for online advising or to schedule an appointment.
Biography
Dr. Jennifer Shea is a Professor of Public Administration and Director of the School of Public Affairs and Civic Engagement. She was a co-founder and faculty affiliate of the Applied Housing Research Initiative (AHRI) and served as faculty co-director of the Willie L. Brown, Jr., Fellowship at SF State University from Fall 2017 – Fall 2024. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Massachusetts-Boston and a Master of Arts in International Affairs from the University of Denver. Prior to earning her Ph.D., Dr. Shea spent 10 years working in the nonprofit sector domestically and abroad.
Teaching Interests
Dr. Shea has a broad teaching portfolio that includes public policy and civic engagement, foundations of governance and management, nonprofit management, and leadership and change management. Through her teaching, she aims to bridge theory and practice, providing students with knowledge and tools that help them navigate the changing landscapes of public and nonprofit sector management. In 2013 – 2014, Dr. Shea won the Faculty Community Service-Learning Award, given by SF State’s Institute for Civic and Community Engagement (ICCE).
Research Interests
Dr. Shea is a community-engaged scholar whose work lies at the nexus of public policy and nonprofit studies. Her most recent work centers on issues related to social equity in public policy and administration, with a specific focus on community resilience to disaster. Much of her research is applied and incorporates equity concerns from critical theoretical and practical perspectives. Whenever possible, Dr. Shea involves student research assistants in her work. Some of her prior research focused on public engagement and innovation in policymaking and implementation, organizational and policy learning, nonprofit finance, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Publications
Dr. Shea has published in several scholarly journals, including the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Journal of Public Affairs Education, Evaluation and Program Planning, and Public Administration Review, written book chapters, and presented related work at more than thirty scholarly conferences.
Selected Publications
- 2025. Networks in crisis: Measuring ethnic stratification and organizational reach post-disaster. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 125 (with Timothy Fraser, Daniel Homsey, and Daniel P. Aldrich, co-authors).
- 2024. A city of two tales: A quantitative analysis of vulnerability, connectedness, and resilience in Cloverdale, CA. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 114 (with Timothy Fraser, Aayushi Mishra, Osama Awadalla, Daniel Homsey, and Daniel P. Aldrich, co-authors).
- 2023. The Social Equity Imperative in Public Administration. In Jay M. Shafritz, E.W. Russell, Christopher P. Borick, and Albert C. Hyde, Introducing Public Administration 10th Edition, pp. 82-122. New York: Routledge.
- 2018. The Community Resilience Approach to Disaster Recovery: Strategies Communities Can Use. In Ram A. Cnaan & Carl Milofsky (Eds.), Handbook of Community Movements and Local Organizations in the 21st Century, pp. 371-390. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
- 2017. Using developmental evaluation as a system of organizational learning: An example from San Francisco. Evaluation and Program Planning 65: 84-93. (with Tory Taylor, student co-author).