Jael Silliman

Jael Silliman

"Last year she completed six years as the Women’s Rights and Gender Justice Program Officer at the Ford Foundation in New York. Previously, she worked at Ford as the Reproductive and Sexual Rights Program Officer. Jael has also served as a tenured professor in Women's Studies at the University of Iowa for several years. She is the author of several books that are widely used in colleges and universities across the US. In addition, she has held positions at the Noyes Foundation, Nehru Foundation, Barnard College, and Columbia University."

She "has been an activist both in the US and international women’s health and reproductive rights movements. She was a program officer at the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, an early supporter of organizations of women of color. She was an associate professor of women’s studies at the University of Iowa, where she wrote about social movements, women’s health, and reproductive rights." She was "the program officer for reproductive rights in the Human Rights Unit at the Ford Foundation. Her most recent book is Policing the National Body: Race, Gender, and Criminalization, co-edited with Anannya Bhattacharjee. She is from India and is an immigrant to the US."

According to a 2009 biography "Silliman is the program officer for Women's Rights and Gender Equality, a part of the Human Rights Unit, Peace and Social Justice Program of the Ford Foundation. She has also served as the program officer for reproductive rights.

"Prior to joining the Ford Foundation, she was a tenured associated professor in the Women's Studies Department at the University of Iowa. She is the recipient of the Iowa City Human Rights Commission International Human Rights Award and an Open Society Fellow."


 * Research Advisory Committee (2007), Center for Women Policy Studies
 * Director (India), Breakthrough