Antara Ganguli ’01 is the director of the United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI). UNGEI is the only multilateral entity dedicated to girls’ education and gender equality in and through education.
Antara has 20 years of experience in international development. She led gender equality for UNICEF India, its largest non-humanitarian office, where she advised and supported 13 field offices on gender-based violence, gender-transformative pedagogy and positive masculinity. She has a Master of Arts in International Economics from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor or Arts in English and Psychology from Amherst College.
Previously, Antara was the deputy representative for United Nations (UN) Women in Bangladesh. She started her career as a primary school teacher for children of sex workers. Antara is also a novelist. Her most recent work, Tanya Tania, a coming-of-age epistolary novel set in Pakistan and India, was published by Bloomsbury in 2016.