American-born Layli Maparyan has been appointed the sixteenth president of the University of Liberia in Africa. Dr. Maparyan is married to a Liberian man and served as Fulbright scholar at the University of Liberia in 2010.
Dr. Maparyan, a distinguished academic and prolific scholar, had been serving as the executive director of the Wellesley Centers for Women and a professor of African studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Earlier, she was an associate professor at Georgia State University’s Women’s Studies Institute and an assistant professor in the University of Georgia’s department of psychology and Institute for African American Studies.
Dr. Maparyan is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta. She holds a master’s degree in psychology from Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in psychology from Temple University in Philadelphia.