Terry M. McGovern is the Harriet and Robert H. Heilbrunn Professor and Chair of the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Since 2018, she has served as director of the Department's Program on Global Health Justice and Governance. Before joining the Mailman School, in 1989 McGovern founded the HIV Law Project and served as the Executive Director until 1999. While at the HIV Law Project, Terry McGovern litigated the groundbreaking case, ''S.P. v. Sullivan'', which led to the

Social Security Administration The United States Social Security Administration (SSA) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability and survivor benefits. To qualify ...

including HIV-related disability in their criteria. She was appointed by President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

to the National Task Force on AIDS Drug Development.

Early life

McGovern was born in the

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, New York.

Education

McGovern graduated ''Summa Cum Laude'' from the State University of New York in Albany New York, in 1983. She received a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1986.

Career

McGovern is known for her leadership as a health and human rights scholar addressing a number of issues including

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

equality, environmental justice, sexual and reproductive health, and overall health outcomes for low-income women. Her legal work tackling health inequalities for low-income people living with HIV/AIDS in New York City, specifically women of color with HIV has led to numerous testimonials before Congress and other policy-makers. Her research focuses on health and human rights, sexual and reproductive rights and health, gender justice, and environmental justice, with publications appearing in journals including Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, Health and Human Rights, and the Journal of Adolescent Health. She has authored various publications and research articles challenging discriminatory norms. In 2017, she published an article with colleagues Johanna Fine, a human rights lawyer formerly with the

Center for Reproductive Rights The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) is a global legal advocacy organization that seeks to advance reproductive rights, such as abortion. The organization's stated mission is to "use the law to advance reproductive freedom as a fundamental huma ...

, Carolyn Crisp, and Emily Battistini, both Alumni from Columbia University's

Mailman School of Public Health The Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health is the public health graduate school of Columbia University. Located on the Columbia University Medical Center campus in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, the school i ...

. The article demonstrated that Sustainable Development Goals have the potential to generate action and accountability to end the HIV epidemic among women and girls. In 2019, she published a study that examined the association between legal systems and

health disparities Health equity arises from access to the social determinants of health, specifically from wealth, power and prestige. Individuals who have consistently been deprived of these three determinants are significantly disadvantaged from health inequiti ...

in women and girls in

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. McGovern's mother, Ann McGovern, was killed in the

September 11 Events Pre-1600 * 9 – The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest ends: The Roman Empire suffers the greatest defeat of its history and the Rhine is established as the border between the Empire and the so-called barbarians for the next four hu ...

attacks. McGovern founded a group called 9/11 Families for Human Rights and was an advocate for accountability and transparency from the US Government in the September 11 Commission. In 2007, a play she created based on interviews with family members of September 11 victims called "9/11: Voices Unheard," which was produced in collaboration with the Irondale Ensemble Project at the Theater for the New City. She later organized other 9/11 families to protest the “Muslim Ban” and has spoken out extensively in the exploitation of the September 11 attacks to justify xenophobia and discrimination.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McGovern, Terry M. Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health faculty Georgetown University Law Center alumni HIV/AIDS activists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)