Kathleen Mahoney

Professor Kathleen Mahoney has been a Professor of Law at the University of Calgary since 1991. Having held many international fellowships and lectureships, she has dedicated much of her research, practice, and activism to internationally critical issues in human rights. She has published extensively and appeared as counsel in leading cases in the Supreme Court of Canada. She has also organized and participated in collaborative human rights and judicial education projects in Geneva, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Tanzania, Namibia, Spain, Israel, China, Vietnam, the United States and the United Nations. She was a founder of the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund and a pioneer of the judicial education movement in Canada.

In 2004, Professor Mahoney spearheaded and authored a major research project and Report examining the Canadian government's response to the claims of Aboriginal residential school survivors. This led to her appointment as the Chief Negotiator for the Assembly of First Nations and the subsequent historic settlement agreement with Canada for reparations and a Truth and Reconciliation Process, which is unique in the world.

Among her many awards, Professor Mahoney was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and received the Canadian Bar Association Distinguished Service Award in 1997. In 1998, she was made a Fulbright Scholar to pursue her research work at Harvard University and was appointed by the Federal Cabinet to Chair the Board of Directors of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. In 2000, she won the Bertha Wilson Touchstone Award and in 2001, she was awarded the Governor General's medal.

She has law degrees from the University of British Columbia and Cambridge University, and a Diploma from the Institute of Comparative Human Rights Law in Strasbourg, France.