44 Facts About Masoumeh Ebtekar

Masoumeh Ebtekar is an Iranian reformist politician, who was the Vice President of Iran for Women and Family Affairs, from August 9,2017, to September 1,2021.

Masoumeh Ebtekar previously headed Department of Environment from 1997 to 2005, making her the first female member in the cabinet of Iran since 1979 and the third in history.

Masoumeh Ebtekar held the same level of office from 2013 to 2017.

Masoumeh Ebtekar is a full professor at Tarbiat Modares University in the School of Medical Sciences, Immunology Department.

Masoumeh Ebtekar's father studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and she lived with her parents in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia.

Masoumeh Ebtekar holds a BSc degree in laboratory science from Shahid Beheshti University, a MSc and PhD in immunology from Tarbiat Modares University in 1995, where she still teaches.

Masoumeh Ebtekar is married to Seyyed Mohammad Hashemi who is a businessman in the private sector.

Masoumeh Ebtekar has served as faculty member at Tarbiat Modares University, which is a postgraduate academic center located in Tehran.

Masoumeh Ebtekar currently teaches cytokines, viral immunology, HIV vaccines, aging, immunology of the nervous system and psychoneuroimmunology.

Masoumeh Ebtekar has currently filed 72 ISI scientific articles in the field of immunology in Scopus in her name.

Masoumeh Ebtekar is a member of several research board committees and a reviewer for two international and four national immunology journals.

We are working with the editors of the JACI journal [the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, a scholarly periodical that published three of the papers from which Masoumeh Ebtekar had copied] to find the best solution in this regard.

Masoumeh Ebtekar issued a statement admitting she had made a mistake and apologizing for it, but including a list of complaints such as eTBLAST's failure to inform her of their finding in advance, the fact that the article was a review article she was invited to write for the Journal, and that more than 76 references were given in the text.

In 2013 Masoumeh Ebtekar was elected as the President of the 12th International Congress of Immunology.

Masoumeh Ebtekar spoke in the opening ceremony and introduced Rolf Zinkernagel, the Nobel Laureate for Medicine, as the guest of honour.

In 1981, Masoumeh Ebtekar became the editor-in-chief of the English daily newspaper Kayhan International, selected by Khatami who was then the representative of Ayatollah Khomeini in Kayhan Institute.

Masoumeh Ebtekar was appointed as the Head of Women's NGO Coordinating Office and Vice Head of the National Committee to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.

Masoumeh Ebtekar served as spokeswoman for the students in the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, where Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line occupied the US Embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

Masoumeh Ebtekar was an advisor of Shahla Habibi, head of the 'Bureau of Women's Affairs' under administration Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the 1990s, and was reportedly the "main driving-force" behind the office.

Masoumeh Ebtekar was the first woman to serve as vice-president of Iran when the reformists came to power.

Masoumeh Ebtekar has been described as a leftist in Mohammad Khatami's alliance.

Masoumeh Ebtekar headed the Department of Environment for eight years, introducing major structural, organizational and directional changes enabling a re-engineering of the government body.

Masoumeh Ebtekar's performance caused comment by members of the Western news media in attendance as she herself was wearing a chador, a reminder of compulsory hijab in Iran which many in the West view as a violation of women's rights.

In March 2002, Masoumeh Ebtekar was a keynote speaker at the Meeting of Women Leaders on the Environment in Helsinki, sponsored by the Finnish Ministry of the Environment.

In September 2002, Masoumeh Ebtekar participated in the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Masoumeh Ebtekar was named one of the seven 2006 Champions of the Earth by the United Nations Environment Program as a prominent and "inspirational" environmental leader who has made an impact at policy level in a region of the world.

Masoumeh Ebtekar said that she believes the award was a team effort, earned by the scholars and experts that she assembled in her Department of the Environment.

Masoumeh Ebtekar was named as one of 50 environmental leaders by The Guardian newspaper on January 5,2008; the only Iranian or Muslim woman in the list.

Under the political section of this yearbook, Masoumeh Ebtekar is described as "a considerable force in the reformist movement in Iran".

On 24 January 2014, Masoumeh Ebtekar was awarded the Energy Globe Foundation Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award in Tehran.

On 29 November 2014, Masoumeh Ebtekar won the Italian Minerva Award for her scientific achievements and successful career in political arena.

In May 2016 Masoumeh Ebtekar was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Political Science by the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea.

Masoumeh Ebtekar co-founded the Center for Peace and Environment in 2005, a non-governmental organization devoted to the promotion of just and sustainable peace and the protection of the environment.

Masoumeh Ebtekar served as a moderator in June 2008 at the International "Women, Equality and Peace" Conference held in Oslo, Norway.

Masoumeh Ebtekar considered for running in the 2009 presidential election after Guardian Council indicated that there is no "legal restraint" against women doing so.

Masoumeh Ebtekar has published a collection of her essays and speeches on the environment and sustainable development, called Natural Peace.

Masoumeh Ebtekar ran for and was elected to the city council of Tehran for the term beginning in 2007, coming in 9th out of 21 candidates, just after Parvin Ahmadinejad, the sister of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Masoumeh Ebtekar established and heads the Tehran City Council Environment Committee and currently runs 20 working groups on environmental issues.

In May 2013, Masoumeh Ebtekar signed up as a candidate for Tehran in the 2013 local elections, along with hundreds of reformist candidates.

Masoumeh Ebtekar mentioned her harsh criticism of government policies leading to air pollution and the deterioration of environmental standards as the main reason for her disqualification.

On 1 August 2017, Masoumeh Ebtekar announced that she will be leaving her current position after the end of the first Rouhani government.

Masoumeh Ebtekar was appointed as Vice President for Women and Family Affairs in second Rouhani government.

Masoumeh Ebtekar took part in a project to develop a book entitled Women, Power and Politics in 21st Century Iran.

In 2011 Masoumeh Ebtekar co-authored a chapter in the book Stem Cells and Cancer Stem Cells published by Springer.