Maeve Kennedy McKean

Maeve Fahey Kennedy McKean (née Townsend; November 1, 1979 – April 2, 2020) was an American public health official, human rights attorney, and academic. A member of the Kennedy family, she was a daughter of Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and a granddaughter of U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

McKean served as the executive director of the Global Health Initiative at Georgetown University. 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. McKean disappeared while canoeing in the Chesapeake Bay in 2020. Her body was recovered from the Chesapeake later that week.

Early life and education McKean was a daughter of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, and David Lee Townsend, a professor at St. John's College. A member of the Kennedy family, she was a granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy and a great-niece of President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. She was an undergraduate student at Boston College. She served in the Obama administration as the first-ever Senior Advisor for Human Rights within the United States Department of State's Global AIDS program and at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Global Affairs, where she led teams on working with human rights policy issues, women's and children's health, and LGBTQ health.

She also worked for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein in California and in Washington, D.C. She served as the executive director of Georgetown University's Global Health Initiative. McKean was also an adjunct professor at Georgetown, where she taught bioethics and human rights. On May 8, 2019, she spoke out against her uncle, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and his non-profit health organization, Children's Health Defense, for spreading false information about vaccines. In March 2020 she signed a letter, along with hundreds of other public health officials, urging U.S. Vice President Mike Pence to follow scientific recommendations and provide adequate funding in response to COVID-19. The two went on a trip to Asia together, travelling to China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. They married on March 21, 2009, at the Whittemore House, a mansion in Washington, D.C. that serves as the headquarters of the Woman's National Democratic Club.

Disappearance and death On April 2, 2020, McKean and her eight-year-old son, Gideon Joseph Kennedy McKean, disappeared while paddling in a canoe near McKean's mother's waterfront residence in Shady Side, Maryland.

McKean had taken her family to Maryland to stay in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reports from the Maryland Natural Resources Police say they were attempting to retrieve a kickball that had landed in the water. Due to high winds, they were swept further out into the Chesapeake Bay. Fire officials from Anne Arundel County received an emergency call at 4:30pm that day from a man who reported seeing a woman and her son, presumably the McKeans, in a small canoe near the community pier at Columbia Beach.

McKean and her son were last sighted ten miles south of Annapolis, near Herring Bay. Marine units from the Queen Anne's County Police Department, Anne Arundel County Police Department, Maryland State Police, and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, as well as the United States Coast Guard, searched the Chesapeake by boat and helicopter. Later that night, after twenty-six hours, the Coast Guard suspended its search. At 7:30pm, Maryland officials called off the search due to darkness. On April 4, 2020, the search was resumed by Maryland police.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, a public funeral could not take place. Melissa Etheridge, Natasha Bedingfield, and Kenny Chesney performed at the online memorial. Maeve McKean and her son Gideon were cremated, and their ashes were scattered off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. A memorial website was later established in their memory.