Paloma Mohamed is a Ph. D and full Professor of strategic behavior and communications at the University of Guyana. She has also been an adjunct Professor of Cultural Diplomatics at Trent University. She is currently the eleventh Vice Chancellor and first woman to lead the University in its 60-year history. She is also the first women Vice Chancellor to be appointed in the Anglophone-Caribbean. Before becoming Vice Chancellor, Prof Mohamed led the University of Guyana’s Transitional Management Committee as its 2 nd Chair from Aug 2019 to July 2020 carefully and successfully shepherding the University through one of its most challenging periods. She has been Deputy Vice Chancellor for Philanthropy, Alumni and Civic Engagement known as PACE, a department which she founded and developed from 2016 to present.

A scholar with an international footprint, Prof Mohamed returned to Guyana in 2007 to help resuscitate her undergraduate alma mater the then failing Centre for Communication Studies. Despite being poised for an international career, she remained with the University of Guyana becoming the first Director of the Centre for Communication Studies, second female Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, first Deputy Vice Chancellor for PACE and Chair of the TMC.

In committing to UG becoming a regionally relevant top ranking international University for the past 15 years, she has brought her special capabilities and network as a world class academic and researcher to the University while still managing to function as a beloved and inspirational teacher as well as a dedicated and courageous servant leader.

As an academic Prof. Mohamed has studied at the University of Guyana, The University of the West Indies, Harvard University (HIES) and CAMH in Canada. Her area of focus is on strategy and change and she is a specialist in human behavior and human communications. She supervised scores of graduate research theses, produced over 20 Ph.Ds., produced and co-produced over 22 films and documentaries.

She has also written and edited 11 books and several academic journal papers including the noteworthy book “Communication, Power and Change in the Caribbean” and “Guyana’s Oil Odessey- 1796 -2022”. She is the current Chair of the Research Advisory Board (RAC) of the Caribbean Examinations Council and a member of the governing Board of the Commonwealth of Learning. Additionally, Prof. Paloma Mohamed Martin has served pro bono on several local and international boards including for the IADB and UNESCO to name a few. She has also served in a technical advisory capacity to various governments and international organizations as a communications strategist and change specialist. She currently serves on CXC’s governing Council, and on several high level Caricom Committees such as COSOD and CREE.

Prof Paloma Mohamed has worked on several multi-million-dollar multi-university research projects. Additionally, as Vice Chancellor and former Deputy Vice Chancellor, she has been highly successful in raising over US$45 million over the last 8 years for the University of Guyana in philanthropic gifts and grants, having developed specialties in dealing with Energy issues, negotiating large financial projects and collaborating with multi-national organizations.

She has also been successful internationally in supporting the creation of 4 international alumni chapters in Toronto, London, New York and Guyana as well as the internationally based University of Guyana Foundation with operations in Washington D.C, Toronto and London.

Before becoming Vice Chancellor XI, Prof. Paloma Mohamed was awarded a Presidential Medal of Service in 2012 and the City of New York Award for Culture in 2013. She became the first woman Caribbean Laureate for Excellence in Arts and Letters in 2015 and was again recognized with a National Arrow of Achievement in May 2015. In 2014 she was named one of Guyana’s top 5 most influential women by the United States Embassy in Guyana.

During the past 5 years (2019 to 2023), Prof. Paloma has collaborated and led an amazing team of the University’s top administrators through one of the most delicate and turbulent periods in its recent history. Under her steady, visionary and people sensitive leadership the University has moved several hundred places in regional and international ranking and has been enjoying a growing positive regional and international profile benefitting the University, Guyana and the institutions graduates, partners and associates.

Prof. Mohamed has taught and still occasionally teaches Communication, Health behavior, psychology as well as research and academic ethics.

She has been the visionary and driving force behind the University’s rapid innovations during Covid19 and for the University’s BluePrint 2040 – which is set to leapfrog the University into a future driven citizen success dynamo. The short period of her tenure has seen the University change rapidly and significantly from being a fully face to face University to a blended one, regaining accreditation and registration in some areas and rising in world ranking 200 places, being named #5 in the world for places to study climate and the environment, growing student numbers by over 700 students a year since 2019 , increasing the number of pedigreed Faculty while balancing the University budgets, avoiding fiscal deficits despite enormous challenges , and boosting UG’s policy and research capacity three-hundred fold with the addition of 6 new research institutes in Energy, Green Economics, Resilience and Strategic Security, Migration and Diaspora and Marine Studies. Under her leadership the University was able to support these programmed through 3 funded research chairs.

Prof Paloma is becoming a respected Caribbean Futurist thinker who is meaningfully inflecting the growing global conversation on the future of higher education, work and humanity on this planet.