Dr. Lisa M. Coleman is New York University’s (NYU) inaugural senior vice president for global inclusion and strategic innovation. In this role, she works with senior leaders, internal stakeholders, external partners, and constituents to advance, promote, and build capacity for strategies for Global Inclusion, Diversity, Belonging, Equity, and Access (GIDBEA) and strategic innovation initiatives across NYU. This includes the New York, Shanghai, and Abu Dhabi campuses, as well as NYU’s thirteen global sites, and numerous global research centers. Dr. Coleman is also a faculty member at the NYU Stern School of Business and teaches at NYU Abu Dhabi.

Prior to NYU, Dr. Coleman served as the first chief diversity officer and special assistant to the president at Harvard University for almost a decade, where she and her team developed some of the first initiatives focused on the intersections of technology, disability, and access. Before her appointment at Harvard University, she served as an administrator and faculty member at Tufts University and was later appointed to serve as the institution’s first global inclusion and diversity senior executive.

She earned her doctorate in Social and Cultural Analysis, American Studies from NYU, and three master’s degrees in African and African American Studies; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and Communication Studies from the Ohio State University. She also holds certificates focusing on legal theory and intercultural development and her undergraduate research foci were sociology, anthropology, and computer science. She loves to travel, is an avid photographer, gardener, cook, and soon to be
(hopefully) pilot.