Verene A. Shepherd, Professor of Social History at the UWI, is the second woman to hold a professorship in the Mona History Department, the first being Elsa Goveia. She has contributed to the advancement of Women’s History in the History Department, helping to develop the course, “Women and Gender in the History of the English-speaking Caribbean” which she has taught since 1993. She chaired the Organizing Committee of the first ever gender history symposium held at the UWI in 1993 (in which the CGDS collaborated) out of which came Engendering History: Caribbean Women in Historical Perspective (1995). She compiled Women in Caribbean History (I999) on behalf of the Mona History Department’s Social History Project, which she directed from 1993-1996; and, while a Board member of the CGDS, initiated the idea of the Lucille Mathurin Mair Lecture Series. She has authored two books focused on the Indian diaspora in the Caribbean and has edited/co-edited seven other books including Working Slavery, Pricing Freedom: Perspectives from the Caribbean, Africa and the African diaspora (2002) and Slavery without Sugar: Diversity in Caribbean Economy and Society Since the 17th Century (2002).