Dee Wulf served as Friends of Straus Park’s Treasurer from 1997 – our founding year under Leon Auerbach as President – till 2014. She served under three FOSP Presidents, including Auerbach, Jo Abrams in 1998, and Kate Ford. Dee then left the treasurer position but continued as a contributing board member until 2024 under current President Virl Andrick. She subsequently had to step down to care for her ailing husband, Mel Wulf.

Born in London, England, Diedre earned her undergraduate degree in Sociology from the London School of Economics and a teaching certificate from the Institute of Education, University College London. In 1962 Deirdre married Melvin Wulf and moved to New York City, where her husband worked as the Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

After earning a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University, Deirdre was on staff at the Alan Guttmacher Institute as an editor of its peer-reviewed journal, International Family Planning Perspectives from 1978 to 1987. For more than two decades after this she consulted with the Institute as a writer for many of its major reports on sexual and reproductive health, with a focus on access to safe abortion services at the global, regional, and country levels. 

In 1994 the Women’s Refugee Commission (then the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children) published the groundbreaking report, “Refugee Women and Reproductive Health Care: Reassessing Priorities”. Deirdre managed and wrote much of the report, traveling to and conducting research in refugee camps in Rwanda, Kenya, Pakistan, Belize, Thailand and Cambodia. The report was instrumental in getting the right of refugee sexual and reproductive health on the international agenda and was used at the International Conference on Population and Development, the Cairo Conference, in 1994.

Deirdre Wulf, 86, passed away peacefully in the presence of family, in Boston, MA., on July 2, 2025.