Verene Albertha Shepherd is a Jamaican academic who is a professor of social history at the University of the West Indies in Mona.
13 Facts About Verene Shepherd
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Verene Shepherd is the director of the university's Institute for Gender and Development Studies, and specialises in Jamaican social history and diaspora studies.
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Verene Shepherd has published prolifically in journals and books on topics including Jamaican economic history during slavery, the Indian experience in Jamaica, migration and diasporas and Caribbean women's history, and is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa.
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Verene Shepherd attended Huffstead Basic School, Rosebank Primary School, and St Mary High School, and then completed a teaching certificate at Shortwood Teachers' College.
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Verene Shepherd was later awarded a PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1988 for her thesis on the economic history of colonial Jamaica.
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In 1988, Verene Shepherd joined the Department of History at the University of the West Indies.
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Verene Shepherd was elevated to a full professorship in 2001, and in 2010 was appointed director of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies.
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Verene Shepherd has served as president of the Association of Caribbean Historians, chair of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, chair of the Jamaica National Bicentenary Committee.
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Verene Shepherd is an advocate of reparations for slavery, and in 2016 was appointed co-chair of Jamaica's National Council on Reparations.
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Verene Shepherd has held several positions within the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, serving as a member of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
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Verene Shepherd was chair of WGEPAD from 2011 to 2014, and lobbied for the creation of the International Decade for People of African Descent.
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In 2013, in her role as chair of WGEPAD, Verene Shepherd was asked to inquire into Zwarte Piet.
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Verene Shepherd authored a letter, on "headed, official UN high commission for human rights paper" to the Dutch government proposing that it move towards ending the tradition, and in a later interview with EenVandaag described the character as "a throwback to slavery".