Susan Gray
Portrait Details
Artist: Donna L. Woodley
Year: 2021
Biography
Susan Gray was born in 1913 in Rockdale, Tennessee. She received her bachelor’s degree from Randolph-Macon Women’s College in 1935 before earning her Masters and Ph.D. in psychology at Peabody College in 1939 and 1941, respectively. Holding the distinction of Peabody’s first female psychology professor, Gray co-founded the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and the nationally renowned Early Training Project. Her work is a model for early childhood development, and Gray is credited with inspiring Lyndon B. Johnson’s Head Start program. In 1986, the Kennedy Center’s Experimental School was renamed the Susan Gray School in her honor.