Leslye Obiora

Leslye Amede Obiora is from Oguta, a riverine Igbo community in Nigeria. She was born on the cusp of the pogrom that triggered the Biafra Secessionist War. Her parents had nine children – six daughters and three sons; Leslye was the sixth girl and the seventh child.

Professional career

Obiora has been a Professor of Law in the United States since 1992. In 1999, she received an unsolicited offer from the World Bank to manage a program to help advance substantive gender equity in Africa. In 2006, she received another unsolicited appointment to serve as the Minister of Mines and Steel Development for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. She is the recipient of several nominations and, including the Coca-Cola World Fund Visiting Faculty at Yale University as well as fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study Center, and the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. She has been the Genest Global Faculty at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto and the Visiting Gladstein Human Rights Professor at the University of Connecticut. Obiora is the founder of the Institute for Research on African Women, Children and Culture (IRAWCC which is pronounced as "I ROCK").