Mary Graham

Mary Graham is an American writer and academic. She is co-director of the Transparency Policy Project at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, which aims to understand and improve public disclosure systems.

Graham's research focuses on the politics of public disclosure, information strategies to improve public health and safety, new trends in environmental policy, and the struggle between government openness and secrecy in the United States from the 1700s to the present.

She has written four books on the politics of public information. Presidents' Secrets: The Use and Abuse of Hidden Power, was published in 2017. In 2007, with co-authors Boston University professor David Weil and Harvard University professor Archon Fung, she wrote Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency. In 2002, she wrote Democracy by Disclosure: The Rise of Technopopulism. In 1999, she wrote The Morning after Earth Day: Practical Environmental Politics.

Graham has written for the Atlantic Monthly, the Financial Times, Environment magazine, Issues in Science and Technology, and other publications. She has a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and an undergraduate degree from Harvard-Radcliffe. From 1967 to 2007, she was married to former Washington Post publisher Donald Graham. They have four adult children.

From 2001 to 2013 Graham was a board member for the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation. In 2010, she joined the advisory board for the Wikimedia Foundation's Public Policy Initiative.

Earlier in her career, she practiced law in Washington, DC, worked on regulatory reform at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and worked on legislative and budget issues at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Ms. Graham is a trustee of the Juilliard School for the Performing Arts and a member of the visiting committee of the Columbia University School of Journalism. She also serves as a trustee emerita of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She is a graduate of Harvard-Radcliffe College and Georgetown University Law Center. Ms. Graham also serves on the Board of Directors of The Pew Charitable Trusts.