Elizabeth Nyamayaro is an award-winning humanitarian and United Nations (UN) Special Advisor for the World Food Programme. Born in Zimbabwe, Elizabeth has worked at the forefront of global development for over two decades, improving the lives of underserved populations. She has been instrumental in fighting global inequalities, advancing social justice, and challenging the status quo to accelerate women’s rights around the world through her leadership roles at the World Bank, World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and UN Women.

Elizabeth is the mastermind behind HeForShe, a United Nations global solidarity movement for gender equality that took the world by storm, generating more than 1.2 billion conversations on social media and galvanizing men in every single country in the world in just five days. Elizabeth is a prominent thought leader and has engaged at global forums such as World Economic Forum in Davos, Cannes Film Festival, Skoll World Forum, Harvard, Oxford, the British Parliament, among others. Her Ted Talk garnered more than 1 million views in its first weeks.

Named by Female Lead in 2021 as one of “67 Women Changing the World,” and as Apolitico’s “100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy” in 2018 and 2019, Elizabeth has been touted by the New York Times as “one of only two women transforming Davos.” She has been featured in Vogue, Fast Company, Wired, Fortune, Elle, BBC, and CNN. She has also served as a Glass Lions juror at Cannes Lions and has received the PR Council Trailblazer Award for Social Impact and the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Global Women’s Rights Award. A Political Scientist by training, Elizabeth holds a master’s of science in politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and leadership education from the Harvard Business School. She wrote a memoir about her life and experiences in, I Am A Girl From Africa.

This event is free and open to the public.  A free ticket is required for admission.

Guests are not permitted to bring food, drink, and/or backpacks into the auditorium.

In case of inclement weather, an announcement will be posted at shc.psu.edu/luchinsky

This event is co-sponsored by the University Park Allocation Committee and Presidential Leadership Academy (PLA).