American public health official, human rights attorney, and academic, also noted as a member of the Kennedy family. She served as the Executive Director of the Global Health Initiative at Georgetown University.
McKean was a daughter of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, and David Townsend, a professor at St. John’s College. She was delivered at home with assistance from her father following a short labour of one hour. Her mother was an advocate of home birth.
She was a granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy and a grandniece of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
During the Obama Administration, McKean was the first-ever Senior Advisor for Human Rights in the United States Department of State’s global AIDS program and the Office of Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
She married David McKean on 21 March 2009 at the Woman’s National Democratic Club, a mansion in Washington, D.C. She was the first of Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s grandchildren to marry. They have three children; Gideon, Gabriella, and Toby.
McKean disappeared with her eldest son, eight-year-old Gideon, in the Chesapeake Bay on 2 April 2020, while paddling in a canoe in high winds. Maryland law enforcement officials declared that she and her son were presumed dead on 3 April 2020.
McKean and her son’s disappearance has been referred to in the media as part of the “Kennedy curse”, a series of deaths, accidents, and other calamities involving the family.
Link to Wikipedia biography