Susan Kelly-Dreiss

Kelly-Dreiss was born in Pennsylvania. She attended Carlow College and West Virginia University. She served on the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency and was a founding member of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2009.

She was the co-founder of the first domestic violence coalition in the United States, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV). Her inspiration behind starting the PCADV came from growing up in a battered home herself. As the Executive Director of PCADV, Kelly-Dreiss oversaw the growth of the network from nine to sixty-one community-based programs throughout the state of Pennsylvanian. In 1993, she was instrumental in securing federal funding to establish the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence at PCADV, which provides information and technical assistance on domestic violence and related issues.

Susan Kelly-Dreiss worked on behalf of battered women and their children for over thirty years. She started her career by helping to open a shelter for battered women in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Then in 1976, she joined with other women to successfully lobby for passage of Pennsylvania's first domestic violence law, the Pennsylvania Protection from Abuse Act. During this time, there was little to no law to protect battered women due to the wake of Roe v. Wade, Title IX, and the ongoing fight for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Susan Kelly-Dreiss (born 1942) is an American women's rights and anti-violence activist. She co-founded and served as the first Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV). She helped pass the Pennsylvania Protection from Abuse Act, that state's first domestic violence law.