Jane Pisano

Biography

Jane Pisano, Ph.D., joined USC in 1991 as dean of the School of Public Administration. During her nearly seven-year tenure as dean, she led a major effort to strengthen the school academically at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Annual gifts and grants more than doubled (from $1.7 to $3.6 million) and the endowment increased four-fold (from $7.5 to $31 million). In 1994, Dr. Pisano was appointed vice president of external relations at the university; and she was promoted to senior vice president in 1998. In this role, Dr. Pisano not only worked with the USC’s chief management team, but was also responsible for establishing and maintaining communal, public, governmental, and alumni connections and relations. She and four other senior officers worked with and assisted the president of the university in essentially all significant decisions.

In addition, Pisano engineered a community outreach program that was nationally recognized when USC was named “Time Magazine College of the Year” in 2000. She conceptualized and implemented the Good Neighbors campaign, which funds university/neighbor partnerships for neighborhood improvement. She led USC’s participation with the Family of Five Schools in the University Park/Exposition Park neighborhood, as well as with two schools in the Health Sciences campus neighborhood, and helped organize the Kid Watch program.

Dr. Pisano’s teaching career began in 1972 at the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University. Outside of the classroom, Dr. Pisano served as a White House Fellow (1976-77) for national security affairs at the National Security Council. In 1991, she was elected to the National Academy of Public Administration, where she formerly served as chair.

She is the former president of the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. She holds a B.A. in political science from Stanford University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University.