Rufus Sylvester Lynch currently serves as Chair of The Strong Families Commission, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that works to eliminate barriers to father involvement in youth- and family-serving systems of care.
Throughout his career, Rufus has served in senior staff positions in state government, private industry, higher education, and nonprofit corporations. From 2012-2016, Rufus was a Stoneleigh Fellow and Research Associate at Bryn Mawr College’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, where he identified best practices for the integration of responsible fatherhood programming within family-focused systems of care. He is the former Dean of the Whitney M. Young, Jr. School of Social Work at Clark Atlanta University and has authored or co-authored over two dozen manuscripts in professional books and/or scholarly journals. He continues to remain committed to the Institute for the Advancement of Working Families, which seeks to promote best practices in the human services field to meet the needs of vulnerable communities. Rufus has been recognized as a Pennsylvania Social Worker of the Year, a Steller Innovator by Ashoka Changemakers and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Children’s Wellbeing Initiative, and a National Association of Social Worker’s Social Work Pioneer.
Rufus holds a BA in sociology from Morgan State College, an MSW from the University of Pittsburgh, and an advance Certificate in Social Administration and a DSW from the University of Pennsylvania.
