Background
Mary Williams Walsh was born in Wausau, Wisconsin in 1955.
Mary Williams Walsh was born in Wausau, Wisconsin in 1955.
She graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1979 with degrees in French and English.
Walsh was a Walter Bagehot fellow in economics and business journalism at Columbia University"s Graduate School of Business during the 1982-1983 academic year and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University during the 1998-1999 academic year. Walsh began working as a general assignment reporter at the Wall Street Journal in 1983 and was a foreign correspondent for the Journal from 1985-1989, reporting from Latin America and South and Southeast Asia. From 1989-1998 Walsh was a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, reporting from various locations in Europe, Africa and North America.
Her reports from Europe for The Los Angeles Times received the Overseas Press Club of America citation for excellence in 1995.
In 2000, Walsh became a reporter for the Business/Financial Desk of the New York Times. The same series of reports was also a finalist for the 2003 Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business and financial journalism.