Susan Martinelli Shea ’76, P’04

Susan Martinelli Shea ’76, P’04, has been a member of the Boston College Board of Trustees since 2006. In addition to being a key University leader, she has served BC as a volunteer for many years. A member of both her 30th and 35th Reunion Committees, Shea has also been an active member of her local alumni chapter and a full member of the Council for Women of Boston College. In addition, she has assisted the University’s scholarship efforts as a volunteer solicitor for Pops on the Heights.

Shea is the president and founder of Dancing with the Students (DWTS), a nonprofit organization she started in 2005. DWTS teaches ballroom dancing to students from low socioeconomic areas in and around Philadelphia. Her former career as a special education teacher spanned 15 years and five states, and she still volunteers weekly in the resource room at the Gesu school—an independent Catholic school in Philadelphia.

Shea serves on the boards of the Please Touch Museum and the Gesu School and was awarded the Great Friends to Kids Award in 2007 and the Gesu Spirit Medal in 2009.

She holds a bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in education from Boston College and a master’s degree, summa cum laude, in communicative disorders from Johns Hopkins University, 1978.

Shea resides in Berwyn, Pa., and has two sons, Andrew ’04 and Steven, Fairfield University ’06, University of Pennsylvania ’08.