Theresia Degener, is Professor of Law, Administration and Organization at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences in Bochum, Germany (Evangelische Fachhochschule Rheinland Westfalen Lippe).

She lectured and researched abroad on international human rights and disability law in the United States (1999/2000 at UC Berkeley, School of Law ) and in South Africa (2004/2005 at University of the Western Cape, Belleville / Cape Town ). At Berkeley, she was a Humboldt-fellow and undertook a global comparative study on disability discrimination law.

Theresia is the co-editor of ‘ Human Rights and Disabled Persons', Dordrecht : M. Nijhoff 1995 (together with Yolan Koster-Dreese) and ‘Human rights and disability: The current use and future potential of United Nations human rights instruments in the context of disability', OHCHR, United Nations, New York and Geneva, 2002 (together with Gerard Quinn, et. al.). She is the co-founder of the German working group on disability studies in Germany. Currently she is the chair of a research project on disabled women and violence.

She has been working as a legal advisor for the German Government, the Commission of the European Union and the United Nations as well as European Disability Forum and other NGOs in the areas of bioethics, gender law, disability law, discrimination law, and international human rights law.

Theresia was a member of the European Commission Network of Independent Legal Experts on Disability Discrimination ( Brussels ) and a member of the bioethics commission of the federal parliament in Germany. She represented Germany in the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee drafting a convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.