Candace de Russy is a nationally recognized expert on education and cultural issues. A former college professor with a doctorate in French from Tulane University, she was appointed to the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Air Force Academy by President George W. Bush in 2002. In 2005, when her term ended, she received the Air Force’s Exceptional Service Award. De Russy has been published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Academic Questions, the New York Post, the New York Sun and other publications. She served as a member of the board of trustees of the State University of New York from 1995 to 2007.

In 2005 she joined the Ave Maria University board of regents, which in 2006 she was appointed to chair. She is currently a member of the trustees council of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni as well as a member and treasurer of the board of directors of the National Association of Scholars. She serves on the advisory boards of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the Independent Women's Forum. From 2004-2009 she served as an adjunct fellow at the  Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., where she focused on academic standards, assessment, governance, strategic planning, accountability, funding and other issues in higher education.

In 2005 she became a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, which is dedicated to protecting and expanding democracy by winning the global war against terrorism as well as the movements and ideologies that drive it. In 2004 she co-founded and became chairman of Democracy Project, whose mission it is to strengthen the institutions and contentions that support liberty and democratic rule at home and abroad.