Dr. Susan MacManus received her M.A. from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. from Florida State University. She is the Distinguished University Professor Emerita in political science in the Department of Government and International Affairs, School of Interglobal Studies, at the University of South Florida.

For many years, she served as political analyst for WFLA-TV, the Tampa NBC affiliate. Since 2016, she has served as the political analyst for WFTS-TV—ABC Action News, the Tampa ABC affiliate.

MacManus is the author of Florida’s Minority Trailblazers: The Men and Women Who Changed the Face of Florida Government (University Press of Florida, 2017), Young v. Old: Generational Combat in the 21st Century? (Westview, 1996), and Targeting Senior Voters (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).

She served as Chair of the Florida Elections Commission from 1999 to 2003 and helped the Collins Center For Public Policy, Inc. draft Florida’s Help America Vote Act state plan, specifically the voter, election official, and poll worker education section required by Congress to qualify for federal funding under the Help America Vote Act.

MacManus was a Fulbright Research Scholar at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, in 1989. She received USF’s Distinguished Research Scholar Award in 1991, was honored as the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society’s USF Artist/Scholar in 1997, and was designated a Distinguished University Professor in 1999.

She received the first biennial Diane Blair Award for Outstanding Achievement in Politics and Government from the Southern Political Science Association in 2001. In March 2002, the Florida Political Science Association awarded her its Manning Dauer Distinguished Florida Political Science Award. She has also been a Reubin O’D. Askew Fellow of the Florida Institute of Government since 1995.