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 Deborah Rutter, former head of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in her first interview since the board installed President Trump as its new chair. -
NPR's Adrian Ma remembers his girlfriend, Kiah Duggins, who died in the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Potomac River in January after a mid-air collision.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Rep. Pete Sessions, co-chair of the House DOGE Caucus, on how he plans to work with the Department of Government Efficiency. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Iuliia Mendel, Ukrainian journalist and former press secretary for President Zelenskyy, about her recent op-ed in Time magazine.
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OpenAI — the company behind ChatGPT and a big part of Stargate — is partnering with the U.S. National Laboratories. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly spoke with OpenAI's Chris LeHane, here are the highlights. -
As prisoner and hostage exchanges happen in Gaza, we hear about the International Red Cross's experience in facilitating this work.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin about his plans to block a federal funding freeze President Donald Trump ordered Monday. -
In an exit interview with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, CIA Director William Burns says he still thinks "there's a chance" for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks to outgoing CIA Director Bill Burns about the handling of Russia, the Mideast, and security threats during his tenure, plus what lies ahead for the intel community.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Margie Mason, investigative reporter at the AP, about the alleged exploitation and abuse of the prison labor force in Alabama.
