Megan LePere-Schloop

Megan LePere-Schloop researches and teaches public and nonprofit management. She received her Ph.D. and her MPA from the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Georgia (UGA) and her undergraduate degree in History from Oberlin College.

Megan’s research contributes to the fields of public affairs and organization studies, using both computational and qualitative methods. Her solo and team research on nonprofit organizational fields explores how United Ways and community foundations respond to environmental challenges including demographic shifts, evolving fundraising and managerial norms, and the COVID-19 pandemic. She won the 2018 Best Dissertation Award from the Academy of Management Public and Nonprofit Division for her research examining the effect of national institutional context and local competition on organizational change across the United Way system. Her bibliometric research with Rebecca Nesbit examines knowledge production and integration in the fields of public administration and nonprofit studies. Their paper “The Nexus of Public Administration and Nonprofit Studies: An Empirical Mapping of Research Topics and Knowledge Integration” won the 2021 Felice Perlmutter award from the ARNOVA Theory, Issues and Boundaries Section. Her work with Erynn Beaton examines sexual harassment in boundary-spanning professions like fundraising. Her work has been funded by the Mott Foundation and published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals including Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ), the Journal for Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART), and the International Review of Administrative Sciences. Megan works with practitioners to translate her research into practice in meaningful ways.

Megan teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on managing and leading public and nonprofit organizations. In 2020, she received the Ohio State Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. In the classroom she incorporates insights from her own professional management experience, emphasizing active learning and the practical application of theory.

Previously, Megan served as the Director of Programs at Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, an internationally acclaimed youth development nonprofit that has performed with artists such as Maya Angelou, Aretha Franklin, and Sweet Honey in the Rock. While at Mosaic, Megan grew satellite program participation from 230 to more than 1000 youth served each year and represented Mosaic in an inter-agency partnership recognized as a model for collaborative youth arts programming.