Anneliese A. Singh named Tulane University’s first chief diversity officer

Anneliese A. Singh, a professor and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the College of Education at the University of Georgia, has accepted the appointment as Tulane’s first Associate Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development, effective July 20.

Singh will serve as the university’s chief diversity officer, leading efforts to coordinate and enhance that the university’s campus-wide diversity, equity and inclusion work so that it has greater impact. She will share best practices in building diversity across campus and bring much-needed attention to and support for efforts focused particularly on recruiting, supporting and retaining a diverse faculty. In addition, Singh will join the School of Social Work as a full professor, with a joint affiliation with Tulane’s Department of Psychology.

“We are very happy to have Anneliese join our university family. In this new position, Anneliese will help to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community,” Tulane President Mike Fitts and Provost Robin Forman said in a university-wide message. “This is central to our mission and an essential element of our excellence as a research university.”

“In this new position, Anneliese will help to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community.”

- Tulane President Mike Fitts and Provost Robin Forman

“I am thrilled to be named the Associate Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development/Chief Diversity Officer at Tulane University,” Singh said. “This new and critically important role is especially meaningful to me, as I trace my own lifelong commitment to social change to my hometown of New Orleans and the very first undergraduate classes I took at Tulane. I am very much looking forward to collaborating with faculty, as well as the entire Tulane community and its many local, regional, national and international partners to develop innovative and courageous diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that support Tulane’s vision of building a more just and equitable world.”

A New Orleans native and Tulane alumna, Singh earned her bachelor’s degree in political science/environmental studies with a minor in women’s studies from Tulane in 1991. She received both her master’s degree in professional counseling (2002) and her PhD in counseling psychology (2007) from Georgia State University. 

Singh has been a professor at Georgia since 2007 and was named to her current position as associate dean there in 2016. Her research, practice and advocacy are far-reaching, and focus on translating a deep understanding of the experiences and needs of historically marginalized groups into insights on how counselors and psychologists can offer meaningful support and become effective social change agents.

A prolific author, Singh has published over 100 articles and several books, such as Racial healing: Practical activities to help you challenge privilege, confront systemic racism and engage in collective healing (2019) and is a co-PI on the first National Institutes of Health-funded longitudinal, multi-site (Atlanta, New York, San Francisco) study of trans and non-binary risk, resilience and identity development. She has been honored with over 11 national awards for her work in social justice organizing and community-building, and currently serves as president of the Society of Counseling Psychology.

Singh co-founded the Georgia Safe Schools Coalition to support LGBTQ+ students at the intersection of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, race/ethnicity, disability, class and other identities and experiences. She founded the Trans Resilience Project to translate her research over the last nearly 20 years on the resilience that trans and nonbinary people develop to resist discrimination and move toward liberation.