Ceci Connolly has been a national staff writer at the Washington Post since 1997, covering national politics, health care and several major disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. As the national health policy correspondent for the Post she spent the past year chronicling President Obama's drive for sweeping health-care legislation. She frequently appears as a commentator on national television and is popular on the public speaking circuit. She is one of the lead authors of “LANDMARK: The Inside Story of America's New Health Care Law and What It Means for Us All.”

  
For much of her career, Connolly has dedicated herself to clear, insightful coverage of U.S. politics 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."

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Connolly traveled for several months with John Kerry, tracing his come-from-behind nomination. She has written extensively about Congress, including the 1994 Republican revolution and the rise and fall of House Speaker Newt Gingrich. She has reported on every U.S. presidential campaign since 1984, attending numerous national conventions, debates and firehouse chili fests in New Hampshire.

  
In summer 2001, Connolly was named national health policy correspondent for the Post, producing articles on bioterrorism, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, skyrocketing medical bills, physician-assisted suicide, stem cells and the Terri Schiavo case. She was sent to Louisiana in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and spent 5 months on the ground, reporting on the worst natural disaster in modern U.S. history.

  
She spent two years based in Mexico City, traveling extensively throughout Latin America. Her daily blog on Mexico 's 2006 presidential race, Campaign Conexion, was read by people on both sides of the border and received hundreds of comments each day. She also produced a multimedia project on HIV-AIDS along the U.S.-Mexico border, and published a magazine series for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation examining the links between socioeconomic factors and health.

  
As a public speaker, Connolly has a unique ability to translate complex subjects for audiences at all levels. She has spoken at the prestigious National Press Club, the Chautauqua Institution, the Cleveland Clinic and numerous universities, including Yale, Syracuse, Harvard, Columbia, Howard and Case Western. In spring 2010, she moderated a panel for the New York Stem Cell Foundation on Alzheimer’s research and addressed the Milken Global Health Conference in Los Angeles. Her breadth of experience enables her to speak authoritatively on a range of subjects including politics, health care, journalism and what it takes to be a successful woman in the male-dominated worlds of Washington and Latin America.

  
Connolly arrived in Washington in 1992 to cover politics 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 coming to Washington, she worked at the Associated Press in Boston, and at two New England dailies, the Concord Monitor and the Patriot Ledger.

  
She has appeared on PBS' Washington Week, The Early Show on CBS, NPR's Diane Rehm Show and several news programs on MSNBC and the Fox News Channel. She provided live, on-air analysis Election Night 2004 and Inauguration Day 2005 for the Fox Network. She has been published in Every Day with Rachael Ray, Inside Mexico and the Human Rights Campaign magazine.

  
In early 2001, Connolly was awarded a fellowship at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She is a graduate of Boston College and enjoys golfing, cooking and eating in her free time.