Verene Shepherd

Verene A. Shepherd, graduate of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of Cambridge, is Professor Emerita of History & Gender Studies at The UWI, a past University Director of The Institute for Gender & Development Studies, current Director of the Centre for Reparation Research, also at the UWI, and Chair of the oldest UN Treaty Body, The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). She is also Hon. Fellow, Jesus College, Cambridge, a Vice-Chair of The CARICOM Reparation Commission and a member of the Jamaica National Council on Reparation.  

In addition to her peer-reviewed articles and her co-authored and co-edited publications, she is the sole author of 7 books, among them, The Biography of Lucille Mathurin Mair published by The UWI Press in 2020; I Want to Disturb my Neighbour: Lectures on Slavery, Emancipation and Post-Colonial Jamaica (Ian Randle Pubs, 2007) and Maharani’s Misery: Narratives of a Passage from India to the Caribbean (UWI Press, 2002). 

She has received several awards, including The Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence for Public Service (2017) and the Order of Distinction, Commander Class from the Govt. of Jamaica for her work in History and Gender Studies and her public service.