Dr. Claudia Petrescu is the Associate Vice President for Graduate Education and Internationalization Initiatives, Illinois State University, USA. She is an experienced higher education leader who served in leadership roles such as Vice Provost for Graduate Education & Dean of the Graduate School at Kansas State University, Chief Strategy Officer, and Dean of Graduate School at Oakland University in Michigan. Dr. Petrescu is a tenured professor in the Department of Politics and Government at Illinois State University.

Petrescu has over 20 years of academic leadership, including 10 years of leading graduate schools at R2 and R1 institutions. She is a strategic thinker that builds partnerships with academic, non-academic and community partners to design and implement a data-informed graduate education culture. Petrescu’s work and research interests are in the areas of organizational change, strategic planning, student success, evaluation, nonprofit management, and capacity building.  

Claudia has been published in journals such as the Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, International Leadership Journal, Nonprofit Management and Leadership among others. She is also a recent graduate of the American Council of Education (ACE) fellowship program. Claudia holds a doctorate in Public Policy and Public Administration from the University of Pittsburgh, and obtained graduate degrees from Duquesne University, the National School of Public Administration and International Relations, Bucharest, Romania, and Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.