Louise Lief has been deputy director of the International Reporting Project since the program was founded in 1998.

Previously she was a senior editor at U.S. News and World Report, where she worked for 10 years, primarily covering the State Department and foreign affairs community in Washington. Before joining the magazine, she lived in Paris, where she was an associate producer/researcher for the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” developing programs and covering events in Africa, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. While in Paris, she also worked as a stringer for TIME and Newsweek, and was a contributor to The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and the Boston Globe Magazine. Prior to working in Paris, she was a Cairo-based stringer for The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and the Voice of America.