For almost 6 years, veteran foreign correspondent Mary Kay Magistad has covered East Asia for The World. From the geopolitical struggle over North Korea's weapons program, to the SARS epidemic, to tensions in Kashmir, Magistad has brought local perspective to stories with international impact.

Before joining the staff of The World she covered Southeast Asia and China for National Public Radio, the Washington Post, and other media for twelve years. She opened NPR's first Beijing bureau and covered a wide range of political, economic, cultural, and social issues, including Chinese war games preceding Taiwan's first presidential elections, the crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual sect, and increasing tensions in the Sino-US relationship. She has also reported from Africa, covering the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, the challenges of famine in Ethiopia and the Polisario's forgotten war in the Western Sahara.

Magistad earned her BS in journalism at Northwestern University and an MA in international relations at Sussex University in England, completed on a Rotary Foundation fellowship. She was a 1999-2000 Nieman fellow and a 2001-2002 Radcliffe fellow, both at Harvard University.