Masoumeh Ebtekar

Masoumeh Ebtekar (born 21 September 1960) is an Iranian reformist politician, who was the Vice President of Iran for Women and Family Affairs, from 9 August 2017 to 1 September 2021.

Ebtekar was nicknamed "Mary", when she was the spokeswoman of the students who took hostages and occupied the US Embassy in 1979.

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.

In 1981, 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.

She served in the newspaper until 1983.

In 1991 she co-founded the Institute for Women's Studies and Research.

Since 1992, she has been the license holder and managing director of the journal Farzaneh Journal for Women's Studies and Research.

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.

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

As Professor of Immunology, she has taught, supervised and advised PhD and MSc students.

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

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

In her speech to the Eleventh International Congress of Immunology in Tehran, she mentioned the detrimental effect of sanctions on the advancement of science in Iran and noted that sanctions should not be directed against nations.

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

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.

Later, she was elected as the President of the Network of Women's NGOs in Iran.

She 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.

The review paper, on cytokines and air pollution, was published in 2006 in the Iran Journal of Allergy Asthma Immunology (IJAAI) 5 47-56:2006.

A couple weeks after the eTBLAST report, Nature covered the story, quoting one of the authors of original papers, (Ian Mudway, a toxicologist at the King's College London) as saying, "the article is a veritable patchwork of other people's work, word for word, grammatical error for grammatical error."

Nature also stated that Ebtekar had not replied to its emails.

In response, the editor-in-chief of the IJAAI issued a statement saying: "We regret for this duplication that appeared in the journal. 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 Ebtekar had copied] to find the best solution in this regard."

Later she became the head of the Environment Protection Organization of Iran during the administration of President Mohammad Khatami, and was a city councilwoman of Tehran from 2007 to 2013.

Ebtekar was born in Tehran as Masoumeh, Niloufar Ebtekar in a middle-class family.

Her first name translates to "Innocent Water Lily" in English.

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

During her six years in Philadelphia, she developed "near-perfect, American-accented English."

Returning to Iran she enrolled in Iranzamin (Tehran International School).

Later after graduation as a student, she became a supporter of the political Islam of Ali Shariati and began wearing a traditional black chador covering everything except her face.

On 7 October 2008, eTBLAST, a text similarity search engine on MEDLINE database, noted that 85% of a review paper published by Masoumeh Ebtekar came from several previously published articles.

In December 2008 Ebtekar's article was retracted.

The issue received some political and public attention in Iran.

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.

She held the same level of office from 2013 to 2017.

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

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

The Congress was held on 29 April 2014.

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

Ebtekar was promoted to full Professorship in January 2019 and elected as Immunology & Allergy Association in 2018.