Mary Louise Kelly
Mary Louise Kelly is a co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine.
Previously, she spent a decade as national security correspondent for NPR News, and she's kept that focus in her role as anchor. That's meant taking All Things Considered to Russia, North Korea, and beyond (including live coverage from Helsinki, for the infamous Trump-Putin summit). Her past reporting has tracked the CIA and other spy agencies, terrorism, wars, and rising nuclear powers. Kelly's assignments have found her deep in interviews at the Khyber Pass, at mosques in Hamburg, and in grimy Belfast bars.
Kelly first launched NPR's intelligence beat in 2004. After one particularly tough trip to Baghdad — so tough she wrote an essay about it for Newsweek — she decided to try trading the spy beat for spy fiction. Her debut espionage novel, Anonymous Sources, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2013. It's a tale of journalists, spies, and Pakistan's nuclear security. Her second novel, The Bullet, followed in 2015.
Kelly's writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Washingtonian, The Atlantic, and other publications. She has lectured at Harvard and Stanford, and taught a course on national security and journalism at Georgetown University. In addition to her NPR work, Kelly serves as a contributing editor at The Atlantic, moderating newsmaker interviews at forums from Aspen to Abu Dhabi.
A Georgia native, Kelly's first job was pounding the streets as a political reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 1996, she made the leap to broadcasting, joining the team that launched BBC/Public Radio International's The World. The following year, Kelly moved to London to work as a producer for CNN and as a senior producer, host, and reporter for the BBC World Service.
Kelly graduated from Harvard University in 1993 with degrees in government, French language, and literature. Two years later, she completed a master's degree in European studies at Cambridge University in England.
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Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina wants to increase availability of the at-home rapid tests the Biden administration is promoting. But he warns of a shortage without market competition. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Aisha Nyandoro, CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, which works with Mississippians receiving public assistance, on the impact of the extended child tax credit.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Hilma Wolitzer about her collection of short stories, Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket, which illuminates the complexity of motherhood and marriage.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly checks in with Filipe Ribeiro, the Afghanistan representative for Doctors Without Borders, to find out how the organization is doing right now.
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NPR's Mary Louise talk with Dr. Aharon Sareli of Memorial Healthcare System in Florida and Dr. Adriano Goffi of Altus Lumberton Hospital in Texas about how COVID-19 surges are affecting their staffs.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Amy Hagstrom Miller, president of Whole Woman's Health, which provides abortions in Texas and tried to get the Supreme Court to stop the Texas law.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Alex Azzi, editor of the NBC blog On Her Turf, about the Paralympics in Tokyo.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Dr. Shankar Kurra, Vice President of Medical Affairs at Rapid City Hospital, on South Dakota's COVID surge following the Sturgis motorcycle rally earlier in August.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with moms from across the country about the impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had on their children's educations.
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Filipe Ribeiro of Doctors Without Borders Afghanistan talks to NPR about the future of the country's health care system under Taliban rule.
