Judy Pryor-Ramirez is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Public Service and the Director of the Executive Master of Public Administration Program. Her teaching and research examines the leadership of nonprofit, social justice movement building and public leaders using race, gender, and class analyses. Judy engages qualitative methodologies and specializes in community-based participatory action research. Dedicated to enabling transformative possibilities, Judy centers justice and equity in her teaching, practice and research.
Prior to Wagner, Judy served as the assistant dean and faculty member in leadership at the Bard College MBA program in New York City where she taught courses on antiracist leadership and personal leadership development. Before that she was an independent consultant for New York City nonprofits like The Laundromat Project, The Worker Institute, Bronx Children’s Museum, and Robert Sterling Clark Foundation to name a few.
Before consulting, Judy spent fifteen years leading strategic initiatives for civic engagement and social justice at The New School, Emerson College, and University of Richmond. As a result of her leadership, she was selected to serve on the national advisory board member of Imagining America, a national consortium that brings together scholars, artists, designers, humanists, and organizers to imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory ‘America’ and world. Her career began in government as a policy analyst for New York City Council and the New York State Education Department during the Bloomberg and Pataki administrations.
Judy has contributed essays to Public Seminar, a journal of ideas, politics, and culture and has co-authored digital curriculum projects for Brooklyn Historical Society, Emerson College and Drew University on topics related to race/ethnicity, Black women's contributions in the arts and media, and community-based participatory action research respectively. In addition to writing, Judy is a master process facilitator and pedagogy trainer where she draws upon her training by Rockwood Leadership Institute, Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, and Liberating Structures as well as her scholarly research in women of color feminist scholarship, critical race theory, and transformative learning theory. Judy holds an MA in Sociology and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and a BA in Communication from George Mason University.
