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Diana Wells

President EmeritaAshoka

Biography

Dr. Wells received her Bachelor of Arts degree in South Asian Studies from Brown University and began her work at Ashoka, an international organization that supports social entrepreneurship and building an Everyone a Changemaker word. During her tenure at Ashoka, Dr. Wells has built tools to measure the impact of systems change social entrepreneurs and continued to refine her academic knowledge. In 1995, she received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to conduct research in Trinidad and Tobago. Her project, “Trinidad: Engendering a Multi-Ethnic Society,” inspired her subsequent PhD in Anthropology at New York University. Her dissertation, “Between the Difference: The Emergence of a Cross Ethnic Women’s Movement in Trinidad and Tobago,” distilled her findings on social anthropology, and it informed her work at Ashoka, where she became President in 2005.
In addition to her academic curiosity, Wells has served local and global academic communities through her leadership. She has also taught anthropology at Georgetown University. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and a Trustee of Brown University and Guidestar International, as well as a member of the Advisory Board for Duke University’s Center of Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE). She received the highest honors from the Brown University Alumni Association, and the “Women to Watch” award by Running Start, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that empowers young women to be political leaders.

Regional Focus

Caribbean, Central America, Central and Southern Asia, Eastern and Southern Africa, Eastern Asia, Europe, Middle East and North Africa, North America, Oceania, South America, Southeast Asia, West and Central Africa