About

Suzanne Shirley, LCSW, is the Director of Community Engagement & Fellowships with the Veterans Health Administration Innovation Ecosystem (VHA IE) and serves in a faculty role with MIT's Catalyst Fellowship Program.

In the role of community engagement, Shirley drives transformative innovation across the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) by engaging both internal and external collaborators in the design, testing, and scaling of mission-driven innovative solutions.

Through convening diverse groups of collaborators, she is committed to bringing key stakeholders from every community together in the spirit of solving VHA's most pressing challenges with a focus on customer experience, evaluation, and impact.

In her role leading innovative VHA Fellowship programs, she strategically implements a variety of experiential learning opportunities in partnership with academia, that aim to shape future thought leaders in healthcare, improve care and drive down cost.

Shirley has been recognized through awards such as:
- 2022 AMSUS-Administrative Management
- 2021 Arthur S. Flemming-Outstanding Federal Service
- 2021 Service to the Citizen
- 2021 Teddy Roosevelt-Visionary Leadership
- 2020 ACT-IAC Igniting Innovation-Disruptive Technology