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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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Kara Trainor, whose son was born dependent on opioids because of her addiction, about what the Purdue Pharma settlement could mean for her and her family.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha about how the national public health emergency for coronavirus is coming to an end May 11.
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The COVID Crisis Group has released its investigative report, titled "Lessons from the COVID War: An Investigative Report." This is what it found. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Philip Zelikow about the forthcoming report "Lessons Learned From Covid War: An Investigative Report" by the Covid Crisis Group.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly asks OB-GYN Kristin Lyerly what doctors and patients in Wisconsin have been dealing with before the Supreme Court election — and how it affects abortion in the region.
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The earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria has taken a mental toll on survivors. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with trauma psychologist Dr. Alexandra Chen about the earthquake's psychological impact.
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It's been more than five months since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody, which sparked mass protests in Iran. But part of what fueled them was a sense of economic desperation.
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Following protests and crackdowns over the past five months, authorities held events to mark the 1979 Revolution this week. They show Iranians have mixed feelings about their nation.
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In an interview with NPR in Tehran, Iran's foreign minister dismisses the protests that have spread in the wake of Mahsa Amini's death, saying "nothing important had happened."
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An associate professor at the prestigious Wharton School is not only allowing his students to use ChatGPT, they are required to.
