Liza Mundy
Director, Breadwinning and Caregiving Program
Liza Mundy is a journalist and book author who has written widely for publications including The Atlantic, TIME, The New Republic, Slate, Mother Jones, Spectator (UK), and The Guardian. She is a former staff writer for The Washington Post, where she wrote long-form narrative articles on topics including family life, parenting, politics, reproductive technology, science, and popular culture. Her work at the Post won a number of awards. Her 2012 book, The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners is Transforming Sex, Love and Family (Simon and Schuster), documents the growing number of women who are the primary earners in their households, and explores the impact of women's rising earning power and academic achievement on marriage, dating, child well-being, single parenthood, social inequality, family formation and workplace culture. The Richer Sex was named one of the top non-fiction books of 2012 by The Washington Post, and a noteworthy book by the New York Times Book Review. Her 2008 book, Michelle (Simon and Schuster), a biography of First Lady Michelle Obama, was a New York Times best-seller and has been translated into 16 languages. Her 2007 book, Everything Conceivable (Knopf), explored the impact of reproductive technology on family life and American culture, and received the 2008 Science in Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers, as the best book on a science topic written for a general audience. A Washington Post article on a deaf couple who used reproductive technology to conceive a deaf child was selected by Oliver Sacks for inclusion in Best American Science Writing 2003. She has spoken widely about her work, including in Japan, Denmark, France, Australia and Brazil. Her June 2013 cover story in The Atlantic presented social science findings about the ways in which same-sex marriages may be stronger and happier than heterosexual ones, and explored what straight couples can learn from gay ones. She has appeared on The Colbert Report, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, MSNBC, CNN, C-Span, Fox News, Democracy Now, Bloggingheads TV, the Leonard Lopate Show, National Public Radio's Weekend Edition, All Things Considered, the Diane Rehm Show, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Tell Me More, Talk of the Nation, On Point, and numerous other television and radio shows.
She is one of the foremost journalists writing on family, gender and work issues. New America's Work and Family Program, which she directs, seeks to reframe the conversation to reflect the enormous changes that have taken place within families, workplaces, and the lives of men and women during the past several decades.The program seeks to vigorously explore the new challenges confronting workers, children, students, parents and families; describe the strengths and stresses of life in 21st century America; and push past ideology to construct a vision for how we as a society can better enable men and women to fulfill the quintessential human endeavors of breadwinning and caregiving. She has an AB from Princeton University and an MA in English literature from the University of Virginia. She lives in Arlington, Virginia, with her husband and two children. At various points she has worked full-time, part-time, all-night, at home, in the office, remotely, in person, on trains, in the car, alone, with other people, in dangerous places, under duress, and while simultaneously making dinner.