Susan Cayleff

Susan Cayleff (born 1954) is an American academic and emeritus professor at San Diego State University, having taught there from 1987 to 2020. She was one the inaugural members of the National Women's Studies Association Lesbian Caucus and served on the organization's Coordinating Council between 1977 and 1979. She founded the Women's History Seminar Series at the University of Texas Medical Branch, in Galveston, Texas; the Graduate Women's Scholars of Southern California in 1989; and was a co-founder of the SafeZones program at San Diego State University.

Much of her research focused on women and health. She analyzed both how cultural and traditional beliefs shaped women's quest to find health solutions and the difference between beliefs and how institutional medical policies impacted women. Several of her works examined how alternative medical practices enabled women to become economically, socially, and politically active. Her book Babe: The Life and Legend of Babe Didrikson Zaharias was nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and won the GLAAD Outstanding Book Award in 1996. Her contributions to social equality and inclusion were recognized with the Ashley L. Walker Social Justice Award of the San Diego Human Relations Commission in 2018. The Cayleff and Sakai Faculty Chair of the Pride Center at San Diego State is named in honor of her and Carrie Sakai.