Carmen Twillie Ambar

Carmen Twillie Ambar (born July 3, 1968) is an American lawyer and academic. She has been the president of Oberlin College since 2017.

Early life and education Ambar is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas. Her father Manuel Twillie picked cotton on a farm in Arkansas and became a school principal, and her mother Gwendolyn Brown Twillie earned a Ph.D. in dance at Texas Woman's University, leaving home for a year when her children were young. Her mother later chaired the Theatre and Dance Department at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

She holds a bachelor's degree in foreign service from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and earned both a master's degree in public affairs from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and a J.D. degree from Columbia Law School in 1994.

Career Ambar formerly served as board chair for the Public Leadership Education Network and was vice-chair of the New Jersey Commission on the Status of Women. She served as assistant dean at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University from 2000-2002.

In 2002, she became the ninth woman to lead Douglass College and the youngest dean in its history. A the time she noted she had aspirations to become a college president, and in 2008 was named thirteenth president of Cedar Crest College. She also led initiatives that provided a study abroad experience for all sophomores and The 4-Year Guarantee which laid out a clear path for students to graduate.

Personal life From 1994 until 2019, she was married to Saladin Ambar, who is also a graduate of Edmund A. Walsh School at Georgetown University. In 2007, she gave birth to triplets. She plays piano and enjoys professional baseball.