Bio
Senior Instructor, the Honors College and Adjunct Professor, Religious Studies. Mary Lou holds advanced degrees in Intercultural Human Rights Law (LL.M.) and Religious Studies (M.A.), with undergraduate degrees in Biology and Religious Studies. She attended the UN Sub-commission on Human Rights for Indigenous Working Peoples in Geneva for several years and owns an art glass studio. She studied architectural glass in Germany with top European glass artists. Her allied health career included the set-up of several of the first breast care centers in Miami-Dade County; this was coupled with.certification for breast biopsies and mammography. Her areas of research are human rights law, indigenous sacred sites, earth ethics, biomedical ethics, studies in breast cancer and asbestosis. She has completed a manuscript on the Miami Circle and is involved in two works, a project based on her uncle’s original “V” mail letters from World War II and a novel about her experience as the wife of a US Naval pilot’s. She is a past member of FIU’s Advisory Board of Arts and Sciences, past President of the Women’s Studies Board of Advisors at FIU and is a member of the Overtown Youth Center Board. She is the recipient of the FIU Alumni Torch Award, the Bronze Torch Society and two Outstanding Service awards from the Religious Studies Department. She has two sons: a Miami-Dade County paramedic/firefighter, and a chef in Hawaii, five grandchildren and many pets- dogs, cats and birds. Her home is a certified wildlife habitat. Her courses include the First , Second, and upper division Seminars at BBC, “The Treasures of South Florida, and three upper division Honors courses: “Biomedical Ethics,” and fully online “The Seven Deadly Sins,” and “Human Right: Global Perspectives.” Her specialty areas in Religious Studies include “Healers and Mediums” and American Indigenous Cultures.
