From 1995 to 2003, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend served as Maryland's first woman lieutenant governor. She now works in finance in Washington.
More
Townsend is chair of the Institute of Human Virology, where
scientists and researchers are leading the fight against HIV/AIDS under the
direction of Dr. Robert Gallo. She also serves on the board of the Center for
American Progress, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the Center for
International Policy, the YMCA of Greater New York, the Sheppard Pratt Health
System, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, and the John
F. Kennedy Library Foundation. In 1983, she founded the Robert F. Kennedy Human
Rights Award.
A member of the Council on Foreign
Relations and the Inter-American Dialogue, she has been a visiting fellow at
the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and currently is an adjunct
professor at Georgetown. She graduated from Harvard and received her law degree
from the University of New Mexico.
As lieutenant governor of Maryland,
Kathleen oversaw the state's economic development, transportation, public
safety, and juvenile justice programs. Earlier, as deputy assistant attorney
general of the United States, she helped found the Police Corps, which gives
college scholarships to young people who pledge to work as police officers
after graduating. She also was the founder and director of the Maryland Student
Service Alliance, where she led the fight to make Maryland the first--and still
only--state where community service is a high school graduation requirement.
Kathleen
lives in Baltimore with her husband, David, a professor at St. John's College
in Annapolis. They have four daughters, Meaghan, Maeve, Kate, and Kerry. She is
the author of
Failing America's Faithful: How Today's Churches Mixed God
with Politics and Lost Their Way.
