Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs
Sheldon Gen is the Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs, where he facilitates the professional development of the university’s faculty, from recruitment, onboarding, and retention, to tenure, promotions, and retirement.
He has been at SFSU since 2003, when he was hired as an Assistant Professor of Public Administration. Since then, he has served as a founding faculty member of the School of Public Affairs & Civic Engagement, and the doctoral program in Educational Leadership. He is the co-author of Nonprofits in Policy Advocacy: Their Strategies and Stories (2020), a groundbreaking book investigating
how nonprofit organizations help shape public policies.
Prior to his academic career, he was a civil engineer with public agencies including the Peace Corps, the US Air Force and the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2024, he concluded six years of service as an elected member of the Board of Education of Petaluma City Schools.
A son of immigrants, and a first-generation college graduate, he holds a B.S. from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a license in civil engineering; an M.P.A. from the University of Southern California; and a Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Public Policy. He is also an alumnus of the Presidential Management Fellowship and the Wikipedia Teaching Fellowship, and a recipient of the Peace Corps’ Franklin H. Williams Award for outstanding public service.