Susan Whelan graduated from Boston College as the Scholar of the College, magna cum laude in English, after which she earned a J.D. at the Fordham University School of Law. She practiced law on Wall Street, advising financial institutions, and currently serves the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See as a legal expert/delegate to the United Nations covering trade law and the law of the sea. She is happily married, is the mother of six children, and lives with her family in Westchester County, New York and Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.