Helene Cooper

Helene Cooper is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with a profound understanding of global and national security issues, currently serving as the Pentagon correspondent for The New York Times. Previously, she has held positions as a White House correspondent, diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, and a reporter and foreign correspondent at the Wall Street Journal. Her extensive field reporting has taken her to over 86 countries, including conflict-ridden areas like Pakistan and the Congo, enriching her coverage of international economics, politics, race, and foreign policy.

Born into a well-to-do family in Liberia, Cooper had to flee the country after the 1980 coup, an experience that deeply influences her writing and perspectives. This tumultuous part of her life is poignantly captured in her bestselling memoir, "The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood," which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in autobiography in 2009. She has also penned "Madame President," chronicling the life of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

In addition to winning the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for her coverage of the Ebola crisis in 2015, Cooper's investigative work has earned her several accolades, including an Overseas Press Club Award, the George Polk Award for Health Reporting, and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for International Journalism. She has been a featured speaker at notable institutions like Rice University, Bergen Community College, and Johns Hopkins SAIS, and has appeared on major TV programs such as Meet the Press, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and Morning Joe, discussing a range of critical issues from her columns which focus on the Pentagon and U.S. military.