She also has been the anchor for the past two years of the Discovery Health Channel's Birth Day Live.

Williams is a highly acclaimed broadcast journalist whose investigative work on such topics as foreign policy, ethics, technology and health have made her a respected authority and recognized voice for public information. Williams' preeminent stature as a news anchor, programmer and television personality extends to cable, corporate, public television and interactive media.

As one of the primary architects behind the design of the first worldwide television network, Williams oversaw the construction of the Cable News Network (CNN)'s New York bureau at the World Trade Center prior to the launch of the network in 1980 and served as the channel's principal anchor and vice president in charge of the New York bureau through 1988. She contributed to CNN's award-winning program lineup and played a major role in the network's development, globalization and satellite-trafficking system. She was a critical member of CNN's political anchor team and oversaw the planning and operation of the its second largest bureau, which was responsible for seven hours of original programming a day.

High-ranking TV Executive
In 1982, Williams was appointed vice president, becoming one of the highest-ranking female executives in American television.

Williams was the first woman to win a national Emmy Award for anchoring an evening newscast during her tenure with NBC from 1989 to 1993. For NBC News, she also anchored Sunday Today, NBC News Special Reports, Yesterday Today & Tomorrow and NBC's extended coverage of Desert Storm: War in The Gulf. Williams was a frequent anchor of and correspondent for NBC Nightly News, Sunrise and The Today Show.

In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she wrote and hosted a three-hour PBS special, Reaching Out to Heal. She also hosted a companion program to Bill Moyers' On Our Own Terms, about death and dying, which aired in Fall 2000 on PBS. As host of Hallmark's weekly True North program on personal ethics, Williams earned the 2001 Gracie Allen Award and the 2000 Donald McGannon Ethics in Media Award. Her 90-minute PBS special on alcoholism and addiction, Within Reach, along with her continuing work as a PBS contributing correspondent and anchor on Religion & Ethics Newsweekly have established Williams as a recognized commentator and reporter on broad issues of ethics.

A Career Reporter
Prior to joining CNN in 1979, Williams was a reporter and anchor at WNBC-TV, the NBC flagship station in New York. As special assignment correspondent there, she covered the 1974 and 1978 Senate elections and the 1976 Democratic convention and presidential election. She joined WNBC in 1974. Williams went to WNBC from WPIX in New York, where, at age 23, she served as executive producer of news programming. Previously she was executive producer at KSTP-TV in Minneapolis, Minn., where she started her career as a reporter at age 18.

Mary Alice Williams has made appearances on top-rated national television programs, including Nightline, CNN's Crossfire, The Tonight Show, The Tom Snyder Show and Murphy Brown.

From 1993 to 1999 Williams was a trustee of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. She now serves on its national board of advisers. She has served as broadcast chair for Women in Communications and mass media chair for the National Council of Women. She also was a member of the board of trustees at Fordham University.

Numerous Awards
Williams has received 12 honorary doctorates for her outstanding contributions to journalism and television. In addition, she has received numerous awards, including a national Emmy Award as anchor of NBC Nightly News during the Romanian revolution in 1989; a Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for her Religion & Ethics News Weekly feature on the ethics of saving profoundly premature infants (1999); an American Medical Association's Freddy Award for her television short on a pediatric cardiology team's rescue operation in Guatemala (1996); and the Exceptional Merit Media Award from the National Women's Political Caucus and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for her humanitarian and professional contributions to America (1995).

Personal History
Williams was born in Minneapolis, Minn. She received a B.A. in English and mass communications from Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. She is the mother of three daughters, Alice Ann born in 1990, and twins Sara Mary and Laura Abigail born in 1992. She spends lots of time on soccer and softball fields and is active in community affairs.