Synovia Moss EdD ’25 joined most of the courses for her doctoral program from airport lounges across the country. As CEO and managing partner of Moss Consulting and Management Group, she was simultaneously taking classes and building the infrastructure for the Good Health Women’s Immunization Networks (Good Health WINs) during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. While in the doctoral program, she crisscrossed the country, building trust on the ground, providing technical assistance and ensuring that more than 40 state and national community-based organizations (CBOs) had the support they needed to implement local vaccine-confidence programs.
Good Health WINs—an initiative of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), the largest Black women’s organization in the country—aims to build vaccine confidence and uptake in communities of color. Vaccine hesitancy in these communities is often rooted in systemic inequities and historical health-related injustices. During the pandemic, these communities faced disproportionate infection and mortality rates, underscoring the urgent need for targeted, culturally informed public health interventions.
Moss’ efforts involved leading the national endeavor to strengthen vaccine confidence and to address disparities in vaccine coverage, such as by using imagery, language and voice to make the materials more relatable to the communities that they serve. For example, the national network of Black sororities served as messengers, providing timely information about vaccine safety and where to access the vaccines.
Moss brought to her doctoral cohort over two decades of professional experience leading large-scale, transformative initiatives in the nonprofit, corporate and academic sectors. Moss’ passion for public health and her desire to “live her dissertation” led her back to USC, where she started her higher education journey as an undergraduate while playing for the Trojans’ volleyball team
After leading the vaccine response for Good Health WINs during the pandemic, she wanted to reinvest in herself to sharpen her skills and leadership capacity. She says the return to USC was an intentional effort to “strengthen the tools that I need to lead complex organizations through change,” combining academic research with real-time application in the field.
Moss’ dissertation examined evidence-based decision-making and lessons learned during the pandemic, focusing on how organizational leaders navigated challenges in underserved communities. Through interviews with project managers and other leaders, Moss found that disparities were often not the result of insufficient resources, but of misalignment of vision, strategy and implementation of public health policies. Moss’ work has been published in collaboration with her colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
During her studies at USC Rossier School of Education, Moss connected deeply with Assistant Teaching Professor of Education Eric Canny, who served as her dissertation chair. Given Canny’s experience administering programs on a global scale and leading strategic planning, there was a logical alignment with the work that Moss was doing professionally.
“Synovia’s work uplifted the voices of community partners—those on the ground who implemented truly life-changing programs within the Black community during COVID-19. Theirs is a voice we do not often hear,” Canny says. “Looking at this moment in time, when more programs and research support are being terminated, the importance of looking at her research and ways of helping marginalized communities has taken on a new urgency.”
Today, Moss’ goal is to continue to live her dissertation, putting the lessons learned from her research into practice. She is committed to helping organizations to set clear goals, measure the impact of their actions and remain adaptive in the face of evolving public health challenges. It also means that she’s thinking about what might be on the horizon when the next pandemic strikes and ensuring that community-based organizations are prepared to respond rapidly and effectively.
Recently, Moss helped convene the Good Health WINs National CBO Summit on Vaccine Confidence, a collaboration with national partners to develop a five-year strategic vision for maintaining and expanding vaccine-confidence efforts. These CBOs have been embedded in local communities for years, but Moss wants them to be better engaged and used as a resource, so they are at the top of the list for policymakers when the next public health emergency strikes.
“In leading the largest African American coalition around vaccine confidence in the country, I’m committed to providing a platform for CBOs,” Moss says. “They are a powerful group deeply connected to communities, and we must engage them consistently, not just when there’s a public health emergency.”
Eric Canny
- Assistant Teaching Professor of Education
