About Our Chairperson
May A. Rihani is Senior Vice President of the Academy for Educational Development (AED) and Director of the AED Global Learning Group. She is responsible for educational reform programs in several African and Middle Eastern countries, and focuses on ensuring gender equity in AED’s educational projects and social development programs. She has designed, planned, and managed cross-cutting gender programs and girls' education projects in Afghanistan, Benin, Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Pakistan, and Yemen.
Ms. Rihani has written extensively; a selection of her works includes: Keeping the Promise: Five Benefits of Girls’ Secondary Education (2006). Learning for the 21st Century: Strategies for Girls' Education in the Middle East and North Africa (1993); and Strategies to Promote Girls' Education: Policies and Programs That Work (1992).
May is also a prolific poet in Arabic and English.