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 to U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan about the White House's Mideast policy priorities for the remaining weeks of the Biden administration.
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Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, talks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about democracy in South Korea following the president's brief declaration of martial law.
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From hiding, María Corina Machado says she'll continue to fight for Venezuelan democracy. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Scott Keyes, the founder of the travel app Going, about tips for what to do if your air travel doesn't go precisely as planned
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Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she had to consider whether she is a "feminist." She joined NPR's Mary Louise Kelly to discuss her new memoir, Freedom. -
The United Nations' annual climate conference, COP 29, has wrapped. The goal was to raise money from to help developing nations cut climate pollution and prepare for future threats.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Hanna Hopko, from the International Center for Ukrainian Victory, as Russia's invasion of her country approaches 1,000 days.
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Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel says "a lack of any government experience is an issue" when leading the largest institution in the world. -
Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel explains the challenges that President Elect Trump's pick to lead the Department of Defense will inherit.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with ranking member of the House intelligence committee Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., about president-elect Donald Trump's national security appointments.
