Terry McGovern

Terry McGovern is Professor and Chair of the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Her research focuses on health and human rights, sexual and reproductive rights and health, gender justice, and environmental justice. Terry founded the HIV Law Project in 1989 where she served as its executive director until 1999. She successfully litigated numerous cases against the federal, state and local governments including S.P. v. Sullivan, which forced the Social Security Administration to expand HIV-related disability criteria so that women and other excluded individuals can qualify for Medicaid and social security. From 2006 until 2012, she was Senior Program Officer in the Gender, Rights and Equality Unit of the Ford Foundation. Terry recently co-edited Women and Girls Rising: Rights, Progress and Resistance: A Global Anthology.