Born in Guyana, a citizen of Barbados with several years of service in Jamaica, Joycelin Massiah has for four decades been involved in every aspect of Caribbean society. A Demographer, she received her training at the University of the West Indies where she enjoyed an illustrious career, including being the first female Professor to be appointed in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Her pioneering work on women in the Caribbean has had far reaching effects on Caribbean scholarship in the field of Women and Development and on women’s rights activism in the region. For the past ten years, she has been the Regional Programme Director of the UNIFEM Caribbean Office. Her dynamic leadership there contributed to a successful outcome for the Caribbean at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.