Susan Sanders, RSM has served as Institute president since August 1, 2023. She entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1973 in Chicago, Illinois, where she began her ministry in education at Mother McAuley High School, of which she is an alumna. After receiving her master’s in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley, she worked with the McAuley Institute, a national organization devoted to providing affordable housing for low-income people and served as a policy analyst for the Sisters of Mercy, Regional Community of Chicago. Having received her Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Chicago, Sister Susan then served as associate professor of public policy in the graduate School of Public Services at DePaul University, where she received the University’s Excellence in Teaching Award. Subsequently, she went to St. Xavier University, Chicago, where she founded the Center for Religion and Public Discourse and later became the founding vice president of the Office for Mission and Heritage. Election to the Sisters of Mercy West Midwest Community Leadership Team took Sister Susan to Omaha, NE in 2013. In 2019, she was elected president and, with canonical and organizational changes for the Sisters of Mercy, was appointed an Institute Minister in 2021, the position in which she served until becoming Institute president.