Masoumeh Ebtekar is one of the most popular and richest Immunologist who was born on September 21, 1960 in Tehran, Tehran Province, Iran. When she was born in 1981, the journalist took over as the editor-in chief of the English daily paper Kayhan International, selected by Khatami who was at the time representing Ayatollah Khomeini at the Kayhan Institute. She was employed by the newspaper until 1983. In 1991, she co-founded The Institute for Women’s Studies and Research. Since 1992, she’s been the licensing holder and director for the publication Farzaneh Journal for Women’s Studies and Research. Ebtekar was appointed the Head of Women’s Non-Governmental Organization Coordinating Office and Vice Head of the National Committee to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. In the following year she was elected head of the Network of Women’s NGOs in Iran.
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. Ebtekar is married to Seyyed Mohammad Hashemi who is a businessman in the private sector. They have two children.
On International Women’s Day in 1998, as vice-president of environmental affairs, she made a speech condemning the oppression of women by the Taliban Movement in Afghanistan. Her 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.
Ebtekar was first famous in the role of “Mary”, the spokeswoman of the “students” who took hostages and took over her home at the US Embassy during the 1979. Then she was appointed the director of the Environment Protection Organization of Iran under the presidency of president Mohammad Khatami, and was the city councilwoman for Tehran from 2007 until 2013.
Ebtekar was a spokeswoman for students during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, when Muslim Student members who were part of the Imam’s Line occupied the US Embassy and took the hostages of 52 Americans in captivity for 444 consecutive days. She was chosen due to her excellent knowledge of English She made frequent appearances on American television as a translator as well as spokeswoman of the students, and presented the official position of students. She was called “Mary” by foreign press and “Tiger Lily” by the hostages, a reference to the meaning to “Niloufar”.
She held office as the deputy to 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.
