Ceci Connolly has been a national staff writer at the Washington Post since spring 1997, covering national politics, healthcare and several major disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

As a freelance journalist, she has been published in Every Day with Rachael Ray, the Washington Post’s Book World, Inside Mexico and on the website www.mediamogirl.com.

For much of her career, she has dedicated herself to clear, insightful coverage of U.S. politics and policy at the national, state and local levels. She spent 18 months on the campaign trail with Democrat Al Gore and was a major contributor to the book Deadlock: The Inside Story of America's Closest Election.

At the start of 2004, Connolly was dispatched to Iowa to chronicle John Kerry's come-from-behind victory in the caucuses there. She has written extensively about Congress, including the 1994 Republican revolution and the rise and fall of House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

In summer 2001, Connolly was named national health policy correspondent for the Post, producing stories on bioterrorism, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, skyrocketing medical bills, physician-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cells and the Terri Schiavo case. Her articles have examined the history of the smallpox vaccine, the Cleveland Clinic’s battle to oust McDonald’s and one Seattle hospital’s effort to employ “Toyota-style” management.

She arrived in Washington in 1993 to write for Congressional Quarterly, the magazine of record on Capitol Hill, and spent two years in the Washington bureau of the St. Petersburg Times. Prior to that, she worked at the Associated Press in Boston, and at two New England dailies.

Connolly appears frequently on television and is sought after for public speaking appearances. She has been a regular commentator on PBS' Washington Week and the Fox News Channel.

A graduate of Boston College, Connolly was awarded a fellowship at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 2001. She also attended “journalist boot camp” at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She presently lives in Mexico City, writing about life in Latin America. In summer 2006, she chronicled the Mexican presidential contest in her daily Campaign Conexion blog.

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