Commencement 2022

Titilola (Titi) Harley is a Program Officer on the K-12 Education team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She leads the Research and Development Team’s work on exploring elements of effective educational solutions and practices that are integral to improving outcomes for students who are Black, Latino, and/or experiencing poverty.

Prior to her work in philanthropy, Titi started her career in the Office of Special Education at DC Public Schools, and eventually transitioned into management consulting supporting education agencies across the country. In 2017 she founded Harley Consulting Group, an equity-focused management consulting firm that partners with school districts, state departments of education, schools, non-profits, and foundations to address their organizational and change management needs to better support young people from all backgrounds and expand access to high-quality education.

Titi received her Bachelor of Business Administration from the George Washington University School of Business in 2007. She was awarded the prestigious Presidential Fellowship to obtain her Master of Business Administration (MBA), and graduated again from the GW School of Business in 2009. Since graduation, she has remained engaged with the university as an alumna. In 2012, Titi was elected to the GW Board of Trustees, and in 2017, she joined GW’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development’s (GSHED) advisory council – the National Council for Education and Human Development – on which she currently serves as the Chair. Titi was selected as a 2018 “MBA on the Move” by Forte Foundation, and is also a 2021 Innovation for Equity (IFE) Fellow joining a cohort of education and workforce sector leaders, brought together by a shared mission to improve life outcomes for Black learners. Titi is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Titi loves to travel, and she and her husband, Kiyon, live in Maryland with their 5-year-old son, Caleb, and 3-year-old daughter, Chloe.

Born in India and raised in British Hong Kong, Nirmala Narayan experientially understands the significance of her dissertation, “Written into Representation: The South Asian Girl in Cultural Texts”. She joined GWU from a predominantly business background with an MBA and Master’s in marketing and Finance. She has spent the past 20 years in Philadelphia, where she worked in university administration and as a middle school English teacher. Combining elements of her diverse background, her study explores the influence of representations on how a new generation of South Asian girls construct their social and cultural identities. Her long-term goals are to continue to add to the body of knowledge regarding South Asian girls’ experiences in Education. She loves and adores her niece Aditi and her baby nephew Krishna. Her greatest achievement is keeping her potted plant “Plantasia” alive for the duration of her doctoral journey.