Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and business executive Sheryl WuDunn will speak Wednesday, March 7, as part of the Luann Dummer Lecture Series at the University of St. Thomas.
The talk, free and open to the public, will begin at 7 p.m. in the O’Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium on St. Thomas’ St. Paul campus.
WuDunn will discuss her book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a best-selling book she co-wrote with her husband, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof. Their book makes a case for empowering women as a means of economic development and transforming the developing world.
Books will be available for purchase at the event, and WuDunn will sign copies after her presentation.
In 1990 WuDunn became the first Asian-American reporter to win a Pulitzer Prize, an honor she earned with Kristof for their reporting on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, China.
WuDunn has worked for the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, as well as Goldman Sachs as an investment adviser specializing in philanthropy. She is now a senior managing director at Mid-Market Securities, an investment banking boutique serving growth companies in the middle market, including companies founded and run by women.
She and Kristof also are co-authors of two other best-selling books: China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power and Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia.
WuDunn earned her B.A. from Cornell University, and also holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and an M.P.A. from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
The lecture series is sponsored by the Luann Dummer Center for Women at the University of St. Thomas. The center was established in 1993 by a special bequest from the estate of Dr. Luann Dummer, a professor in St. Thomas’ English Department. Dummer was known for her wisdom, energy and determination. A strong feminist, she helped develop the St. Thomas Women's Studies program and served as its first director.