Synthetic jet actuators (SJAs) may be carefully designed to alleviate the negative impact of impinging flow non-uniformities on the aircraft wing unsteady aerodynamic response. The current study investigates the effectiveness of SJAs for active control of unsteady flow over SD7003 low-Re airfoil in presence of a high-amplitude upstream flow disturbance characterized by a sharp-edge gust. In the adopted numerical procedure, the actuator's dimensional scaling and excitation frequency effects are first examined for a specific SJA configuration using a Lumped Element Model. The next step employs a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes analysis to determine simple fluctuating-velocity boundary condition at the bottom of the actuator's orifice. The orifice with the properly defined boundary condition is then embedded into the airfoil surface for conducting high-accuracy viscous analysis of active flow control during gust-airfoil interaction process. Results of numerical simulations indicate that the SJA positive effect on the airfoil response appears most significant with the actuator operating in resonance with the airfoil natural shedding frequency.