Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd is a 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner, in the commentary category, for her "unsparing columns on the hypocrisies involved in the Lewinsky affair and the effort to impeach President Clinton." She was appointed a columnist of The New York Times’s Op-Ed page in January 1995. Previously, she served as a correspondent in its Washington bureau since August 1986. There, she covered two Presidential campaigns and served as White House correspondent, gaining a wide following of admirers and imitators for her witty, incisive and acerbic portraits of the powerful. She also wrote a column, "On Washington," for The New York Times Magazine.

Ms. Dowd joined The Times as a metropolitan reporter in October 1983. She began her career in 1974 as an editorial assistant for the Washington Star where she later became a sports columnist, metropolitan reporter, and feature writer. When the Star closed in 1981, she went to Time magazine.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist for national reporting in 1992, Ms. Dowd received the Breakthrough Award from "Women, Men and Media" at Columbia University in 1991 and a Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications in 1994. She was named one of Glamour’s Women of the Year for 1996 and won the Damon Runyon award in 2000 for outstanding contributions to journalism.

Dowd is the author of two bestselling books: Bushworld:  Enter at Your Own Rish (2004) and Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide (2005)

Born in Washington, D.C., on January 14, 1952, Miss Dowd received a B.A. degree in English from Catholic University (Washington) in 1973. Ms. Dowd lives in Washington.   Dowd was born the youngest of five children in Washington, DC.  Her father, Mike, worked as a DC Police Inspector while her mother, Peggy, was a homemaker.