By Brooke Adams, communications specialist, University Marketing and Communications

Business executive, activist and best-selling author Sheryl WuDunn will bring her empowering message about approaches for improving the status of women here and abroad to the U as the guest of the Barbara and Norman Tanner Center for Human Rights.

WuDunn’s talk will take place on March 27 at 6:30 p.m. at the Tower at Rice-Eccles Stadium. It is part of the center’s spring forum on “Human Rights, Women’s Rights, and Women’s Leadership: A Priority Across the Globe.” The event is free and open to the public.

“WuDunn has been engaged in really important writing on ways to promote greater access to opportunities and leadership roles for women globally,” said Tom Maloney, director of the Tanner Center for Human Rights. “It should be an optimistic speech with implications for action about how to continue on the path of improving women’s status and helping broader society gain more from women’s talents and use those talents in leadership.”

She currently works at a small banking boutique that helps growth companies operating in emerging markets. WuDunn was the first Asian-American reporter to win a Pulitzer Prize, awarded to her and husband Nicholas D. Kristof in 1990 for coverage in The New York Times of the Tiananmen Square protests.

WuDunn and Kristof are co-authors of four best-selling books, including “A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity” and “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.”

“A Path Appears,” published in 2014, is about altruism and how to bring about change using evidence-based strategies. It was made into a three-part PBS documentary that aired in 2015. “Half the Sky” is about challenges facing women around the globe and was also turned into a PBS documentary series.

A book signing will take place after the lecture.

The Tanner Center for Human Rights is dedicated to providing U students, faculty and the broader community with the inspiration and education needed to become advocates for peace, nonviolence, and human rights. The center seeks to provide avenues for the open discussion of important issues dividing the community, the nation and the world.