Harvard Kennedy School Academic Dean Iris Bohnet has been appointed to the newly formed Gender Equality Advisory Council for the G-7 organization of major industrialized nations, it was announced in London on Friday.
United Kingdom Minister for Women and Equalities Liz Truss said that Bohnet, the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government at the Kennedy School, will join the new gender council along with other leading academics, scientists, government and business leaders, and activists from around the world. The British government holds the annual rotating presidency of the G-7 and will host its annual summit in June. The 19-member gender council will hold its inaugural meeting on April 12.
“I’m pleased that we are using our presidency of the G-7 to put women at the heart of our recovery from COVID,” Truss said. “We will see a brilliant group of people come together to help us break down barriers for women and girls—empowering them and boosting opportunity.”
Iris Bohnet is a behavioral economist whose work combines insights from economics and psychology to improve decision-making in organizations and society, often with a gender or cross-cultural perspective. Her recent research focuses on behavioral design to debias how we live, learn, and work. She is the author of the award-winning book, What Works: Gender Equality by Design. She also is co-director of the Kennedy School’s Women and Public Policy Program.
The gender council chair, British journalist Sarah Sands, said the council is convening at a crucial time: “At the very least, women deserve to be valued, with access to education, to skills, to capital, to trade, and to respect. I’m delighted that so many strong leaders have been appointed to the Council, and I look forward to working with them to hold our decision makers to account, ensuring that they are taking meaningful action to overcome the challenges that we all face.”
Other members of the gender council include former Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop; Fabiola Gianotti, director general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research; British Professor Sarah Gilbert, lead researcher at Oxford University for the coronavirus vaccine; and Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace laureate.