Education and family

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

[4] Her first name translates to "Innocent Water Lily" in English.[4] Ebtekar's
father studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and she lived with her parents in
Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia.[5] During her six years in
Philadelphia, she developed "near-perfect, American-accented English."[6] 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.[7]

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.
Academic career

Ebtekar has served as faculty member at Tarbiat Modares University, which is a post
graduate academic center located in Tehran. As an Associate Professor in
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.[8] She has currently filed 66 ISI
scientific articles in the field of immunology in Scopus in her name.[9] In her
speech to the Eleventh International Congress of Immunology in Tehran.[10] 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.[11][12] Ebtekar was promoted to full
Professorship in Jan 2019 and elected as Immunology & Allergy Association in 2018.
Claims of scientific misconduct

On 7 October 2008, eTBLAST, a text similarity search engine on MEDLINE database,

noted that 85% of a paper published by Masoumeh Ebtekar came from several
previously published articles. The paper, on cytokines and air pollution, was
published in 2006 in the Iran Journal of Allergy Asthma Immunology (IJAAI) 5 47-
56:2006.[13] A couple weeks after the eTBLAST report, Nature magazine 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.[14] 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." In December 2008 Ebtekar's article was
retracted.[13]

The issue received some political and public attention in Iran.[15] 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.[16] In
2013 Ebtekar was elected as the President of the 12th International Congress of
Immunology. The Congress was held on April 29, 2014. Ebtekar spoke in the opening
ceremony and introduced Rolf Zinkernagel, the Nobel Laureate for Medicine, as the
guest of honour.[17]
Social and Governmental career
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 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.
Early activism and role in the Hostage Crisis

Ebtekar served as spokesperson 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. Selected because of her good command of English,
she made regular appearances on American television as translator and spokesperson
for the students, where she presented the official positions of the students. She
was referred to as "Mary" by foreign press, and "Tiger Lily" by the hostages, a
play on the translation of "Niloufar".[18][19]

Ebtekar wrote an account of the embassy takeover with Fred A. Reed entitled
Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture.[20] Western
media have systematically depicted Ebtekar's involvement in a negative manner, as
Reed describes: "For twenty years the prevailing "globalized" version of the
embassy capture has cast the students at best as well-intentioned but naive young
people manipulated ...and at worst as irresponsible extremists."[21] Elaine
Sciolino wrote about Ebtekar's own viewpoint: "Asked by an ABC News correspondent
one day whether she could see herself picking up a gun and killing the hostages,
she replied: 'yes. When I've seen an American gun being lifted up and killing my
brothers and sisters in the streets, of course.'"[18] She is said to be remembered
by many Americans (hostages such as David Roeder, Barbara Timm, the mother of
hostage Kevin Hermening and those who watched her on television) with a great lack
of fondness, in part because "her familiarity with America added profound emphasis
to her rejection of it."[22] When asked by an American interviewer (Elaine
Sciolino) in the late 1990s about her past as spokesperson for the hostage-takers,
why it did not appear on her resume, and why she had changed her name from Niloufar
to Masoumeh, Ebtekar "had no apology and made no excuses" about her role,[23]
describing the hostage taking as "the best direction that could have been taken" by
Iran at the time, but surprised the interviewer with her "chutzpah", insisting that
the interviewer "not write much about these things."[24] Sciolino published this
article in the New York Times unaware of the fact that Ebtekar's book (Takeover in
Tehran) was in print and would be published in 2001.

She held office as the duputy to Shahla Habibi, head of the 'Bureau of Women's
Affairs' under administration Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the 1990s, and was
reportedly the "main driving-force" behind the office.[25]

In the 2012 film Argo, Ebtekar was portrayed by Nikka Far and called only "Tehran
Mary" in the credits.