Senator John Heinz and the current wife of former United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, longtime U.S.

[1][3] Her parents were José Simões-Ferreira Jr.,[4] a Portuguese-born oncologist[1] and tropical disease specialist,[4] and Irene Thierstein, a Portuguese and British[5] national.

[6] Irene Thierstein's father was the scion of a Swiss-German family living in Malta, and her mother was the half-French, half-Italian daughter of an Alexandrian shipowner who traded with Russia during the Crimean War;[1] both emigrated to Portuguese East Africa.

[2] In 1960, Simões-Ferreira earned a Bachelor of Arts in Romance Languages and Literature from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

[12] In 1990, Teresa Heinz met Senator John Kerry at an Earth Day rally.

In 1992, Teresa Heinz met Kerry again, this time at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

[2] In addition to Portuguese (her native language),[14] Heinz speaks English, Spanish, French, and Italian.

[16] Heinz indicated that she had undergone several lumpectomies and would be following up with a targeted type of radiation therapy treatment called accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI).

[17][18] On July 7, 2013, Heinz was taken by ambulance to Nantucket Cottage Hospital after showing symptoms consistent with a seizure.

Her condition was upgraded to fair the next day,[19][20] and doctors were able to rule out a heart attack, brain tumor, stroke, and other triggers.

[26][27] In 1993, with Kerry and environmentalist academic Dr. Anthony Cortese, she co-founded Second Nature, which brings "Education for Sustainability" to college campuses.

[29] In 1995, with a $20 million grant, the Heinz Endowments provided initial funding for The Heinz Center,[25] "a nonprofit institution dedicated to improving the scientific and economic foundation for environmental policy through multisectoral collaboration among industry, government, academia, and environmental organizations.

[34][35] Spurred by the issues uncovered by Pensions in Crisis, Heinz and her foundation created the Women's Retirement Initiative to "extend that investigation and examine how the dynamics of our pension and retirement system contribute to the disproportionate rate of poverty among older women.

[citation needed][39] In 2003, Heinz was named to the PoliticsPA list of "Pennsylvania's Most Politically Powerful Women".

Heinz declined and refused to endorse Republican Congressman Rick Santorum's 1994 bid for the seat.

In a 2004 interview, Heinz criticized George W. Bush's Iraq War policy, stating, "Our first priority was terrorism.

"I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a schoolteacher and librarian, and there couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children", Heinz said.

I appreciate and honor Mrs. Bush's service to the country as first lady, and am sincerely sorry I had not remembered her important work in the past.