Sheryl WuDunn facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sheryl WuDunn
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WuDunn in October 2012
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| Born | November 16, 1959 New York City, U.S.
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| Education | Cornell University (BA) Harvard University (MBA) Princeton University (MPA) |
| Occupation | Writer, journalist, lecturer, business executive |
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| Traditional Chinese | 伍潔芳 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 伍洁芳 | ||||||||||||
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Sheryl WuDunn (born November 16, 1959) is an American business leader, writer, and speaker. She is also a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a very important award for journalism.
Sheryl WuDunn has worked as a senior leader in banking. She focused on companies that were growing fast, especially in technology and new media. She also helped businesses that care about both making money and doing good for society. She has worked on projects related to clean energy and supported women who start their own businesses. Before this, she was a journalist and business executive for The New York Times. She worked as a foreign correspondent, reporting from places like Beijing and Tokyo.
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Sheryl WuDunn's Early Life and Education
Sheryl WuDunn is a third-generation Chinese American. She grew up in New York City, in an area called the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
She went to Cornell University and earned a degree in European History in 1981. After college, she worked for three years at Bankers Trust Company. There, she helped manage international loans. Later, she continued her education. She earned a business degree (MBA) from Harvard Business School. She also received a public administration degree (MPA) from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Her Career as a Journalist
In 1988, Sheryl WuDunn married Nicholas Kristof, who is also a reporter. After working for The Wall Street Journal and other news groups, WuDunn joined The New York Times. In 1989, she became a correspondent in their Beijing office.
WuDunn and her husband, Nicholas Kristof, won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1990. They received this award for their news coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in China. They were the first married couple to ever win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Sheryl WuDunn was also the first female Asian-American reporter to win this prestigious award. She also won other awards for her reporting in China, including a George Polk Award and an Overseas Press Club award.
In 2009, WuDunn and Kristof were given the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2011, Newsweek magazine named WuDunn as one of the 150 Women who "Shake the World."
In 2012, Fast Company magazine chose WuDunn as one of 60 notable members of their "League of Extraordinary Women." In 2013, she was featured in a PBS documentary called "The Makers," which highlighted leading "women who make America." She was also part of a 2013 film from Harvard Business School about successful women who graduated from the school. In August 2015, Business Insider named her one of the 31 most famous graduates of the Harvard Business School.
In 2015, she signed an open letter from the ONE Campaign. This letter asked leaders like Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to focus on women's issues. This was important for setting goals for development funding before a big UN meeting in September 2015.
Books She Has Written
Sheryl WuDunn has written five best-selling books with her husband, Nicholas Kristof.
- China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power and Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia are non-fiction books about East Asia. They explore the culture, society, and politics of the region through interviews and personal stories.
- Her third best-selling book was Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. This book was also made into an award-winning PBS documentary. Half the Sky was even turned into a Facebook game to help people learn about women's issues around the world.
- Her fourth best-seller, A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity, was published in 2014. This book helps people understand how to give to charity effectively and make a difference in solving global problems. It was also made into a popular PBS documentary in early 2015, featuring famous actors like Jennifer Garner and Eva Longoria.
- Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, published in 2020, also became a New York Times best-seller.
Serving on Boards
For over ten years, Sheryl WuDunn served on the Cornell University board of trustees. This included being a member of the board's finance and investment committees. She was first appointed by the university president and later reappointed by the governor of New York.
She also served for many years on the advisory council for the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. In 2013, alumni elected her to the Princeton University board of trustees. Currently, she is on the board of advisors for the Fuel Freedom Foundation. WuDunn also advises several new companies in different areas, such as healthcare and mobile security.
