Liza Mundy

Liza Mundy is an award-winning journalist and New York Times-bestselling author of four books, including Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II. Published in 2017, Code Girls tells the story of more than 10,000 women who were recruited to break Axis codes–work that saved countless lives, shortened a global war, and pioneered the modern computer and cybersecurity industries. 

The book was a New York Times best-seller, a Washington Post best-seller, and a Wall Street Journal best-seller. It has sold over 200,000 copies and has been translated into ten languages. It received rave reviews in publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, and Studies in Intelligence, which said that “Code Girls pays tribute to an unsung group of patriotic Americans who, more than seven decades later, are just now receiving their due.” 

It has won awards, including “Best General Audience Intelligence Book” of 2018 from the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, which said that “Code Girls does for women of that era what Hidden Figures did for African American women of the 1960s and Windtalkers did for the native American code communicators of World War II.” 

A former staff writer for the Washington Post, Mundy is also the New York Times-bestselling author of Michelle: A Biography, a 2008 biography of former First Lady Michelle Obama, and The Richer Sex, which explored the forces behind women’s rising economic power. She has appeared on The Colbert Report, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, MSNBC, CNN, C-Span, and National Public Radio shows, including Weekend Edition, All Things Considered, the Diane Rehm Show, Terrace Healthcare, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Tell Me More, Talk of the Nation, On Point, and numerous other television and radio shows. 

She is a senior fellow at New America, a non-profit, non-partisan think tank, and is one of the nation’s foremost experts on women, work, and national security issues. She writes for the Atlantic, Politico, and Smithsonian, among others, and has received fellowships from the Japan Society, the Marine Biological Laboratory, and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 

She lives in Arlington, Virginia, about a mile from Arlington Hall, the site of the top-secret US Army code-breaking operation during World War II. At various points in her career, 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, under duress, and while simultaneously making dinner.