Susan C. Reinhard is the chief strategist emeritus for the Center to Champion Nursing in America at AARP, a national resource center created to ensure that America has the highly skilled nurses it needs to provide care in the future. She is currently a Visiting Professor for the Betty Irene Moore Fellowship for Nurse Leaders and Innovators at the University of California, Davis. She is the incoming Chair of the RWJBarnabas Health Board of Trustees, the largest, most comprehensive academic health center in New Jersey. Previously, she was a senior vice president at AARP, directing its Public Policy Institute (PPI), AARP’s focal point for public policy research and analysis at the state, federal, and international levels. She also led PPI’s Family Caregiving Initiatives.

Reinhard is a nationally recognized expert in health and long-term care policy, with extensive experience in conducting, directing, and translating research into action to promote policy change. She oversaw PPI teams working on family, home and community issues, health security, and financial security, and from that vantage point served as editor-in-chief of Policy Plus Action: The AARP Public Policy Institute Newsletter. Previously, she served as professor and co-director of Rutgers Center for State Health Policy, where she directed several national initiatives with states to help people of all ages with disabilities live in their communities.

As deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, Reinhard led the development of policies and nationally recognized programs for family caregiving, consumer choice, and community-based care options. She is a former faculty member at the Rutgers College of Nursing, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, the Gerontological Society of America and the Salzburg Global Forum. 

In addition to her board role at RWJBarnabas Health, Reinhard has held many governance positions, including on the boards of the International Journal of Care and Caring, the Leapfrog Group, the National Academy for State Health Policy, Generations, and the National Alliance for Caregiving. She has received many honors, including awards from the Family Caregiver Alliance, New York University, the College of New Jersey, the New Jersey State Nurses Association, ADvancing States, the Gerontological Society of America, the National Association of School Nurses, the National Academy for State Health Policy, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. 

She holds a master’s degree in nursing from the University of Cincinnati and a PhD in sociology from Rutgers University.