Layli Maparyan Named Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women

Layli Maparyan was named the Katherine Stone Kaufmann ’67 Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She will assume her new post on July 1. Since 2003, Dr. Maparyan has been an associate professor in the Women’s Studies Institute at Georgia State University. She also is an affiliated faculty member of the department of African Americans studies at Georgia State. Previously, she was an assistant professor of psychology and for the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Georgia.

Dr. Maparyan is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta. She holds a master’s degree from Penn State and a Ph.D. in psychology from Temple University. She is the author of The Womanist Reader and The Womanist Idea.

“I am so pleased that Dr. Maparyan will join Wellesley in this important role,” said H. Kim Bottomly, president of Wellesley College. “Her work on women’s issues and her dynamic leadership abilities are ideal for building upon the Centers’ legacy of influential and groundbreaking programming. The invaluable work by scholars at the Centers — undertaken in the United States and abroad — reflects Wellesley’s century-long commitment to investing in women and women’s leadership.”

Here is a video of Dr. Maparyan discussing her appointment to lead the Wellesley Centers for Women.