Biography, Maureen McTeer, [E-mail Maureen]
Maureen McTeer has just returned from a year in Washington, D.C. where she was a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at American University. In that capacity, she lectured in law, science and public policy, and offered a seminar course on Advanced Issues in International Health Policy. During the fall semester, she lectured at the Center for Health Policy, Research and Ethics at George Mason University. A long-time advocate of reform to democratic institutions and electoral systems, she was a Senior Fellow in American University's Center for North American Studies, and participated in a conference on Democratic Deficits in North America, where she spoke on women in politics in Canada. In April, 2005, she attended the Ministerial conference on Democracy in Santiago, Chile.

  Maureen began 2004 fresh from the success of her best selling autobiography In My Own Name (Random House Canada); which critics have acclaimed as one of the best memoirs of the book season. Her candid recounting of her many life experiences has inspired thousands of Canadian women and girls; and has made her a popular speaker on subjects as varied as women’s continuing challenges to balance their personal and professional lives and the role of women in public and corporate life in Canada.

  In January, 2004, Maureen graduated with a Masters degree in biotechnological law and ethics from the University of Sheffield in the UK, where she had spent last year as both a visiting research fellow and graduate student. She is the first Canadian to earn this important degree. Her Masters thesis analyzed the issues raised by patents on the human genome. Thanks to this year away and the completion of her fourth university degree, Maureen now offers speeches on a wide range of issues raised by science, such as medical research and public policy, embryo research, cloning, genetically modified organisms, the commercialization of human life forms and patents on the human genome (particularly issues of access to genetic testing and therapies for women with familial breast and ovarian cancer).

  She continues to speak on all of the issues raised in her third book Tough Choices: Living & Dying in the 21st Century (Irwin Law, 1999), especially those of organ transplants, options to increase cadaveric and live donors and the impact of cutting edge research to build our own tissue and body parts.

  She is an expert on regulatory mechanisms dealing with reproductive technologies in Canada and the U.K.; and continues to speak out on the questions raised by keeping legal control at the end of life.

  Finally, her ongoing focus on women’s equality and health makes her a passionate and informed speaker on such topics as women and development, democracy and institution-building; women’s health, the education of girls; and local and international empowerment of women in the developing world.

  Maureen currently chairs the Advisory Board of the Shirley E. Greenberg Women's Health Centre in Ottawa.

  Maureen is fluently bilingual and can address all audiences in both English and French.