In July 2001, Diane Disney joined Penn State as professor of management and dean of Commonwealth College, a blend of 12 separate campuses located across the state. Penn State's largest college, Commonwealth College offers a range of associate, baccalaureate, master's, and continuing education programs through some 1,200 faculty members to nearly 14,000 students.

For the seven preceding years, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy, Disney oversaw the development and implementation of policies for managing the Department's workforce of nearly one million civil service and other employees. Her areas of responsibility included staffing, training and education, compensation, labor and employee relations, systems modernization and regionalization, and rightsizing. Her international activities included serving on the U.S.-Portugal Bilateral Commission; chairing committees for the U.S.-Chilean Consultative Commission, the U.S.-Argentina Bilateral Commission, and the U.S.-Brazil Bilateral Commission; providing technical assistance to the Defense Ministries of Slovenia, Croatia, Chile, and Argentina; and heading U.S. delegations negotiating with Germany on tax and employment issues and with Portugal and Korea on labor issues.

Previously, Disney headed the Rhode Island Office of Defense Economic Adjustment and developed the New England Defense Adjustment Project. For several years, she was director of the Research Center on Business and Economics at the University of Rhode Island, where she was an associate professor of management. Active in economic development, she was a principal researcher for the state's Workforce 2000 Council through URI's Labor Research Center, as well as a member of the Governor's JOBS-RI Council. Disney also had an adjunct appointment to the graduate faculty of the Heller School at Brandeis University, headed the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and worked as Rhode Island Associate for the Urban Institute's Nonprofit Sector Project.

In addition to serving as a management consultant to numerous governmental agencies and private concerns, Disney has been a board or committee member for over 30 nonprofit organizations, including the Naval War College Foundation and the National Federation of State Humanities Councils. In the public sector, she has served on the Federal Prevailing Rate Advisory Committee, the Federal Human Resources Technology Council, the Governor's Personnel System Review Committee, the Rhode Island Human Resource Investment Council, five state legislative commissions, and the Civil Justice Advisory Board for the U.S. District Court (as vice-chair). She was also a director of Providence Energy Corporation.

Disney received her Ph.D. from Brandeis University in policy analysis. She holds graduate degrees from URI and from Duke University and an undergraduate degree from Stetson University. She has written and edited publications on various aspects of management and has been book review editor of Compensation & Benefits Management. Her own most recent book is The Sourcebook on Postretirement Health Care Benefits. In 1994, she was named the Rhode Island Woman of the Year, and in 2000 was named to the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels. In 1997, she was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. She also received the Distinguished Alumni Award for 1999 from Stetson University, and, in January 2001, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. In April 2001, she received the Director's Citation for Exemplary Public Service from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the Exceptional Public Service Award from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Department of the Army Decoration for Distinguished Civilian Service.