Mary Williams Walsh became a reporter for the Business and Financial Desk of The New York Times in 2000.

Before coming to The Times, Ms. Walsh was a foreign correspondent for The Los Angeles Times from 1989 to 1998, reporting from various locations in Europe, Africa and North America. From 1985 to 1989, she was a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, reporting from Latin America and South and Southeast Asia. She started working for The Wall Street Journal as a general assignment reporter in 1983.

Born in Wausau, Wisc., on Dec. 1, 1955, Ms. Walsh graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1979 with degrees in English and French.

Ms. Walsh was a Walter Bagehot Fellow in Economics and Business Journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business during the 1982-83 academic year. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University during the 1998-99 academic year. Her reports from Europe for The Los Angeles Times received the Overseas Press Club of America's Citation for Excellence in 1995.

She is married with two children and lives in Philadelphia.