Faculty

Profile

In January 2022 Bryna stepped down from her leadership role in the Provost Office and returned to the Faculty as University Professor of Policy and Management . Prior to this appointment she was appointed deputy provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs in the spring of 2009. She was operational head of the provost's office, played a lead role in all major planning and academic initiatives, overseeing faculty affairs, and serving as the provost's representative in a variety of contexts.

Other Roles at The New School

Bryna was Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Chair of Urban Policy Analysis and Management at Milano The New School for International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy from 1993 to 1999, and she served as the Dean of Milano from 1999 to 2000. She holds a tenured faculty appointment as professor of Urban Policy Analysis and Management.

A well-known scholar of public policy and public management, Bryna has worked and published in areas including city service delivery, welfare reform, leadership, innovation, and performance management. As a senior fellow at the Gordon Public Policy Center at Brandeis, she directed a project on innovation and leadership. She led a research effort with the National Civic League to identify lessons that have resulted from cities that boast exemplary performance measurement systems and engage citizens in their efforts. As a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, she examined privatization efforts and the changes in service delivery and management systems induced by welfare reform in states around the country. As the recipient of the Einhorn Research Award from the Academy of Governmental Accountability, she has been studying, evaluating, and proposing best practices for performance measurement and management systems in cities around the country. She began her career as a Policy Analyst at Mathematica Policy Research in Princeton, a leading social policy research institution. 

Bryna holds an AB with honors from Vassar College and a PhD from The Heller School, Brandeis University.

Bryna consults city and state government agencies on public policy and public management. She worked with the transition committee on human services under the Spitzer administration and with the New York City Department of Finance on their effort to design a state-of-the-art performance-management system. She has held leadership positions, including vice president, at the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Bryna is a civic leader and is on the boards of various nonprofit institutions. At its 2009 benefit, United Neighborhood Houses honored Bryna as a "New Yorker who makes a difference." She currently serves as President of the Board Of UNH.

Bryna is the author of numerous books on public policy and management, including The Welfare Marketplace: Privatization and Welfare Reform (Brookings Institution Press, 2003); After the Cure: Managing AIDS and Other Public Health Crises, written with Martin Levin (University Press of Kansas, 2000); and Making Government Work, written with Martin Levin (Jossey-Bass, 1994) and Welfare of the Poor, (Academic Press, 1979).

She has been on the editorial boards of leading policy and management journals, including the Journal of Public Policy Analysis and Management the Policy Studies Journal, Ethic and Racial Studies, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, where she was also an associate editor.