Massoumeh Ebtekar

Massoumeh Ebtekar, born on September 21, 1960, in Tehran, Iran, is an Iranian reformist politician, academic, and environmentalist. She served as Vice President for Women and Family Affairs under President Rouhani from 2017 to 2021. Previously, she was the spokeswoman for Iranian students during the 1979 US Embassy hostage crisis. Ebtekar is a professor of environmental science at the University of Tehran and has been involved in various environmental organizations. She was Iran's chief negotiator on climate change and has represented Iran at the UN. Known as 'Mary' to Western media, she was one of the youngest hostage-takers and has since become a reformist voice in Iranian politics.