She had a parent who worked in the overseas division of General Motors, so she grew up in Beirut, and also lived parts of her early life in Greenwich, Connecticut and Puerto Rico.
While running that museum for ten years, she curated a number of widely praised exhibitions and wrote, co-wrote or published accompanying books.
Richard Levin, the President of Yale at the time, said "Susan Vogel is widely respected as an innovator and leader in the museum world.
"[6] Vogel won the 1998 Herskovits Prize for Baule: African Art, Western Eyes,[7] which was later incorporated into a John Edmonds installation at the Brooklyn Museum.
[14] Following her career as an art museum leader, Vogel spent two years as a graduate film student at New York University, and became a documentary filmmaker.