Acting Director
Center for Sustainable Communities
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Dept of Community & Regional Planning

Susan Spinella attended Temple University Ambler from 1997 to 2001 and graduated with a degree in English. She returned to Ambler specifically to pursue a graduate degree in Community and Regional Planning. She received an M.S. in Community and Regional Planning in January 2004. Susan played a key role in the Ambler campus winning the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Rush to Recycle Challenge in 2002; securing a wind power agreement with Community Energy for the campus; and helping plan EarthFest 2003 and the
Ecological, Economic, Cultural, and Intellectual Implications of Sustainability conference held the same day.

Prior to returning to the Ambler campus to pursue her master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning, Susan spent a year as an AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteer in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. While in Oak Ridge, she worked with Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties, (ADFAC) a small non-profit agency dedicated to improving or replacing substandard owner-occupied housing and providing limited emergency needs to the very low- and low-income families of the Appalachian counties.