Dr. Rita Teele is a pioneer of pediatric ultrasound and is currently a member of the Radiology Department at Starship Children's Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand and a Staff Radiologist at Children’s Hospital Boston.

Dr. Rita Teele graduated from Boston University with a B.A. and an M.D. in 1970. She was a radiology resident at Boston City Hospital, now Boston Medical Center, from 1971-1975. She began as a senior resident in July of 1974 at Children’s Hospital and then stayed on, in 1975, for a one year fellowship. She became a staff member of the department in July of 1976. Teele was the first woman in the department, under Chief John A Kirkpatrick.

Teele became an instructor of radiology at Harvard Medical School in 1976, assistant professor in 1979 and associate professor in 1987. From 1988-89, she was a visiting associate professor at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, where she and her family subsequently emigrated in 1992. Dr. Rita Teele became professor of radiology at the Christchurch School of Medicine, under the auspices of the University of Otago. She was also named honorary professor of anatomy at the University of Auckland.

Dr. Rita Teele has written over one hundred journal articles on pediatric ultrasonography, radiographic imaging of the genito-urinary tract and gastro-intestinal tract in children, and other subjects, as well as numerous book chapters and conference proceedings. She has held over sixty visiting professorships and is coauthor of over a dozen educational computer software programs. She wrote Ultrasonography of Infants and Children, published in 1991. She wrote the book while in New Zealand on sabbatical in the late nineteen-eighties. Jane Share MD, her colleague at Children’s Hospital acquired the images while she was away, and therefore the pair shared authorship.

She is the recipient of the Charles A. Janeway Award for teaching from Children’s Hospital Boston, the Christchurch Medical Students’ Association (CMSA) Award for best teacher in Radiology, the Douglas Richardson Award, and is also the recipient of several educational grants from the Medical Education Trust, Otago, New Zealand.