Maureen Callahan is a journalist and author who began working for Sassy magazine and MTV at age 17. She obtained her B.A. from the New York City School of Visual Arts and went on to be an editor and writer at New York magazine, Spin, and now the New York Post. In March she was named Humanitarian of the Year by the American Humane Society for reporting on retired military working dogs and the veterans who are wrongly separated from them.

Maureen is fifth generation Irish American. On her first trip to Ireland she learned that her family, along with “nearly everyone with an Irish surname” had been royalty hundreds of years ago. “The idea that nobility was democratic” struck her as “quintessentially Irish.” She also feels that her love of literature is a direct result of her heritage.

Maureen believes that more transparency will help narrow the gender wage gap, citing how New Yorkers will easily talk about their rent, “but never what they earn, leaving too many of us flying blind.”