Maureen McTeer

Maureen McTeer is a respected Canadian lawyer and author with a special interest in gender issues and health policy, including the development of the appropriate regulatory framework for new reproductive technologies.

She has published four best-selling books, including a personal memoir, and taught at the Universities of Dalhousie, Calgary and British Columbia in Canada, and at the University of California at Berkeley, American University and George Mason University in the United States. She is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Common Law at the University of Ottawa, and a Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Department of Government at the School of Public Affairs; in the Women and Politics Institute and at the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington D.C., where she teaches the introduction to genetics and the law course each summer.

For thirty years, Maureen McTeer has been a leading advocate and symbol of gender equality, and an influential role model for other Canadian women, serving as an active participant in the successful campaign to have gender equality protected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. She was recently presented with both the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons case and the DIVA Award for Outstanding Contributions to Women's Health and Well Being in recognition of her continued commitment to issues of equality. She has met and worked with community groups, and over the years has visited development projects in some 30 countries in the developing world.

Maureen McTeer was a founder and first Chair of the Canadian Bar Association's Eastern and Central European Legal Internship Program which, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, brought young lawyers and judges from Eastern and Central Europe to work and learn in Canadian law firms, courts, and regulatory agencies. For that work, she was awarded both the CBA's Louis St. Laurent Award for Legal Excellence, and the Hungarian President's Cross.

Maureen McTeer earned her graduate degrees from Dalhousie University in Canada (LLM -Health), and the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom (MA in Biotechnological Law and Ethics). She was awarded a Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Carleton University in Ottawa in 2010 and from the University of Sheffield in 2008 in recognition of her pioneering work in the fields of law, science and public policy. She was previously awarded a Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Athabasca in Alberta and a Honorary Diploma from Loyalist College in Ontario.