Susan Howard
Assistant Professor
Design-thinking, One Health, global health, sustainability, conservation decision-making, application of social marketing, game-based learning and emerging digital and social technologies for behavior change
Susan Howard is a behavioral scientist, educator, and innovator who teaches, mentors, and creates at the nexus of academia, industry, and entrepreneurship. She combines the humanities, behavioral, social, and natural sciences with best practices in game-based learning, digital technologies, human-centered design, direct-to-consumer marketing, and other business innovations in her teaching and applied research. Professor Howard's teaching style engages students in a systems-thinking approach to understanding the intrinsic link between health, environmental, social, and economic challenges and provides them with an arsenal of tools to ultimately adopt, advocate for, or design transformative solutions at an individual, campus, community or global level.
Professor Howard is an Assistant Professor in the School of Integrative Studies appointed as the Health, Medicine, and Society Faculty in 2018. Her educational contribution to enhancing student learning at Mason has been recognized for 4 consecutive years by the Office of the Provost for Outstanding Teaching as a result of high student evaluations of Mason Core Courses. In 2019 she was awarded the Faculty Career Connection Award by students from among 200 nominees for "for baking in" (as described by one of her student nominees) job-readiness skills and tools into her courses and coursework.
Professor Howard designed and taught the flagship Design Thinking course where students follow the Stanford Design Thinking Process to create a prototype that solves a problem. She currently teaches Contemporary Health Issues (INTS 410) where students apply principles of design thinking to solve a health challenge on campus or in their community. She also teaches Digital Literacy (INTS 249) where students similarly gain design thinking skills and learn how to appropriately leverage digital tools to communicate and advocate for topics related to social, health, or environmental issues. Prior to her appointment as Assistant Professor of Medicine, Health & Society, Professor Howard served as an adjunct instructor in the Global and Community Health department and as an instructor in the Environmental, Science & Policy department. In her role as adjunct faculty, Professor Howard was awarded the Stearn's Teaching Distinction Award.
Professor Howard’s solutions-approach to teaching has been influenced by her real-world work experience. Working in over 25 countries as a consultant with USAID, the Gates Foundation, UN agencies, the German Development Bank, NGOs, country governments, and others, Professor Howard has led teams to design products and implemented social impact programs and projects that embody a systems-approach to problem-solving including leveraging the link between mobile access, direct-to-consumer innovations and adolescent reproductive health; highlighting the connection between environmental change and infectious diseases through game-based learning; creating markets and income generation for fuel-efficient stoves, safe-birthing kits and and family planning products; ensuring integration of nutrition and agriculture in infant and young child feeding practices and the engagement of men to reduce stunting; incorporating market-based approaches to family planning and reproductive health including social franchising and micro-enterprises; and capitalizing on consumer insights to mobilize health access and product uptake. Professor Howard is currently managing externally funded digital game-design and development projects in India and Nepal in collaboration with Mason faculty, students, and alumni, to effect behavior change in global health. The flagship game under the Game of Choice, Not Chance platform, Go Nisha Go, was recently awarded Best Learning Game 2023 from Games for Change. The game also made the 2023 Fast Company Innovations by Design Top 10 List of Innovations in the Social Justice Category.
Professor Howard received her Bachelor's Degree in English literature from Wesleyan University and with that humanities foundation came an understanding that peoples' stories, their histories, their wants and needs are at the core of social, health, and environmental change. She subsequently received her Master’s Degree in Public Health (MPH) from the University of Hawaii with a dual specialization in Health Systems and Global Health, and her doctoral degree in Environmental Science from GMU when she realized that healthy people cannot exist without a healthy planet. Howard is of Indian descent and the founder and steward of the
Drs. Surya and Cecil Howard Scholarship Fund which she set up in memory of her immigrant parents. In addition to supporting student financial needs, she also is a patron of the arts with support to national and international artists and a member of the Arts Club of Washington. Her service also includes being an active volunteer with the National Park Service where she earned recognition through the 2016 NPS Centennial Service Award. Professor Howard is an amateur acrylic painter with her work recently featured in the Arts Club of Washington Members Show in the Summer of 2022. She lives with her partner and two dogs along the C&O Canal. She is an avid hiker in pursuit of a good bottle of red wine as a reward.
