Janelle Bassett Kerlin

Ph.D., Syracuse University

Janelle Kerlin is an Associate Professor in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. She holds an M.S. in social work from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in political science from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgia State University, she was a research associate in the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Kerlin conducts research on politics and policy related to nonprofit development and operation often from an international perspective. Her present areas of interest include social enterprise and international nonprofit organizations. Current research involves a comparative study of social enterprise development across countries, trends in U.S. nonprofit commercial activity, and legal aspects of for-profit social enterprise in the United States. Her research on international organizations focuses on the alignment of international NGOs with high poverty regions. Her articles have been accepted for publication in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Voluntas, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, the American Review of Public Administration, the Social Enterprise Journal, Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, and Public Management Review. She has also authored a number of book chapters on social enterprise and international nonprofits. She is the author of the book, Social Service Reform in the Postcommunist State: Decentralization in Poland and the editor of two volumes on comparative social enterprise: Social Enterprise: A Global Comparison and Shaping Social Enterprise: Understanding Institutional Context and Influence. Among other awards, Dr. Kerlin was the recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship and a research scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Dr. Kerlin currently serves as an associate editor for the Social Enterprise Journal.