Jo A. Yudess, Ed.D.

Dr. Jo Yudess is an adjunct assistant professor at the Center for Applied Imagination, and she is currently the Creativity and Change Leadership Department’s distance learning coordinator of the master’s program. 

She is owner/president of United Innovations, an organizational development consulting firm primarily training people in organizational development, creative problem-solving and facilitation skills in the United States and Brazil. She has taught a variety of courses as an adjunct faculty member in other colleges in the Buffalo area, taught online courses in Maine and Massachusetts, and in a Ph.D. program for the University of the Virgin Islands where she is currently dissertation chair for one student. She was managing editor for 11 years of the  Journal of Creative Behavior, a publication of the Creative Education Foundation. She is also an adjunct faculty member and colleague for the CEF, and has received the foundation’s Distinguished Leader Award. 

She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in secondary education, chemistry and mathematics; and a Master of Science degree in creative studies and personnel administration from Buffalo State College, in addition to her Doctor of Education degree in executive leadership from St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y.  In 2017, she received the Chancellor’s Medal for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching. She has received five Faculty Appreciation Awards from Campus Life and six Outstanding Service-Learning Class Awards from Civic and Community Engagement, as well as receiving the Mid-Career Faculty Award for Community Engagement in 2019. She is a Service-Learning Fellow and an Open SUNY Fellow.