Susan has long been an impassioned defender of human rights. Over the past decade, she and her husband, Jim, have helped produce important films that seek to shed light on injustice, like Born Into Brothels, which won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Documentary and Anita: Speaking Truth to Power, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Susan was honored to support the Divinity School at Harvard University by sponsoring the February 28th panel about the barriers facing women hoping to work within Shari’a law courts. Titled “Women’s Rights in a Man’s World,” the panel featured Kholoud Al-Faqih, the first female judge in a Palestinian Shari’a court, as well as several other notable female law leaders.

Each spring, the Harvard Divinity School (HDS), of which Susan is a member of the Dean's Council, hosts a Leadership Day devoted to thinking through global issues about faith and religion.

This year, Susan was honored to say a few words about retiring dean, William A. “Bill” Graham. “Bill is one of the most open and warm people that I have ever known,” remarked Susan. “He [helped] me to understand how my art flowed from my spiritual self, connecting me with the work of this great institution and the progression of religious expression through art over time.”

The current issue of the Harvard Divinity Bulletin features a long article by William A. Graham, Dean at HDS and respected Harvard professor and scholar. In “Reading the ‘Book of Nature’,” Graham uses the collection of paintings in Susan’s book, Natural Revelations, to explore the “venerable tradition of artists who find in nature their prime window on the divine.”