Susan Rappaport has been an active participant in many civic, international and cultural groups, with special expertise in the arts and public relations, and a long-time interest in human rights. She formerly was Director of Communications at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in her home-town, Philadelphia, and then at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.

 

In 1989 she conceived, wrote, and edited the unique publication, The Traveler's Guide to Art Museum Exhibitions (Harry Abrams), an annual calendar of US and international museum exhibitions, which she sold to the New York Times in 2000. She worked pro-bono at the President's Committee for Arts and Humanities during the Clinton Administration and was an editor for a publication Arts in Education produced by the Chairman, Harriet Fulbright. She has served on the Washington Boards of ArtTable, Young Audiences, and Human Rights First, and Family and Child Services, and on the Advisory Board of Children's Rights Watch, a division of Human Rights Watch, and CEC, a cultural exchange program with Russia and Eastern European countries.

 

She currently is Co-Chair of the Northern Ireland/Middle East Project for Vital Voices and serves on the boards of the Women's Foreign Policy Group, FULCRUM, a literary review that publishes works in English by writers and poets world-wide, with an emphasis on human rights and freedom of expression, and the Folger Shakespeare Library Poetry Series. Her interests combine both the arts and politics as a way to further dialogue towards mutual understanding. She and her husband Don are the parents of three daughters and five grandchildren.