May Rihani

She assumed a position as director of the Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values and Peace at the University of Maryland, College Park, in early 2016. She is a candidate for the 2022 Lebanese presidential election, and has vowed to seek support from the opposition parties, independent MPs and the thirteen reformist deputies as well as the Lebanese diaspora.

In 2016, Rihani was appointed the director of the George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values of Peace at the University of Maryland. She served as director of the Gibran Chair for Values and Peace at the University of Maryland until 2020.

May Rihani (born 1945 in Freike, Matn District, Lebanon) is an expert on girls' education and women's empowerment. She worked in over 40 countries and visited over 70 countries to advance these causes. She was a Senior Vice president of three leading US organizations that worked in International Development: FHI360, the Academy of Educational Development (AED), and Creative Associates International. She served as the Co-Chair of the United Nations Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI) between 2008 and 2010. She is a Lebanese writer and poet in both Arabic and English. She is also a women's rights activist.

In her English language books, she focuses on "addressing girl's education, woman's empowerment and global human development". Two of her major books are Learning for the 21st Century: Girl's Education in the Middle East and North Africa, which was translated by UNICEF to French, Arabic and Persian; and Keeping the Promise: Five benefits of Girls Secondary Education. In addition, she authored Cultures Without Borders: From Beirut to Washington, D.C., a memoir.