Ellen Goodman has spent most of her life chronicling social change and its impact on American life. As a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist she was one of the first women to open up the oped pages to women's voices and became, according to Media Watch, the most widely syndicated progressive columnist in the country.

She continues that from her observation post now as a writer, speaker and commentator.

Ellen began her career as a researcher for Newsweek magazine in the days when only men wrote for the newsweekly. She landed a job as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press in 1965 and, in 1967, for The Boston Globe where she began writing her column in 1974. It's been syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group since 1976.

A 1963 cum laude graduate of Radcliffe College, Ellen returned to Harvard in 1973-74 as a Nieman Fellow, where she studied the dynamics of social change. In 2007, she was a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where she studied gender and the news. As the first Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor in Professional Journalism she taught at Stanford in 1996.

Ellen's first book, Turning Points (Doubleday, 1979), detailed the effect of the changing roles of women on the family. Six collections of her columns also have been published: Close to Home (Simon & Schuster, 1979); At Large (Summit Books, 1981); Keeping in Touch (Summit Books, 1985); Making Sense (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989); and Value Judgments (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1993) and Paper Trail: Common Sense in Uncommon Times (Simon & Schuster, 2004). She is also co-author with Patricia O?Brien of I Know Just What You Mean: The Power of Friendship in Women's Lives (Simon & Schuster, 2000).

Ellen won the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary in 1980. She's won many other awards, including the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award in 1980. She received the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in 1988. In 1993, The National Women's Political Caucus gave her the President's Award. In 1994, the Women's Research & Education Institute presented her with their American Woman Award. In 2008, she won the Ernie Pyle Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Society of Newspaper columnists.

Ellen has a daughter, stepdaughter, two grandchildren and lives with her husband, Robert Levey in Boston. An innovative force in American journalism, Ellen brings her trademark intellect, wit, and compassion to her speeches. She's given keynote speeches all across the country.

The Political is (Too) Personal, The Media is (Too) Polarized, and Television News is an Oxymoron.

Ellen gives a bird's eye view on what's happening today in the era of food fight journalism, red and blue politics, bloggers and screamers.

Whatever Happened to the Women's Movement?

Ellen offers a witty and wise report on the state of American women, men and families. How and why we got stuck and where we go to now.

Women and Health:

Women play many roles in the evolving story of health care in America. They are family caregivers, the intermediaries between children and doctors, husbands and doctors. They make most of the family decisions about medical care. At the same time, women are patients and research subjects, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.

In the past decades we've seen enormous change in all these areas. We've seen women becoming half the medical students. We've seen nurses struggling to gain more respect for their roles. At the same time, we've seen women as patients coping with the research on hormones. The magic pill that was supposed to keep them young forever now appears to be a danger more than a help.

Women and Social Change: A Progress Report

Ellen offers a witty and insightful "progress" report from the turbulent front lines of social change. From the myth of Supermom thru the myth of Superwoman, from the halls of Congress to the privacy of the bedroom, she talks about changing American values and analyzes what's happening with men, women and families in today's society.

The Function of Media in a Free Society: Is The Personal (Too) Political?

A 30-year veteran journalist, Ellen takes us from a time when the press shielded the private lives of an FDR and a JFK to the time when the personal has become public with a vengeance. What do we make of cable TV food fights and scandals of the day? Ellen argues for the importance of balancing and deepening the media.

Sex and Sense:

Ellen has long written and talked about sex and values, about the transition from a double standard to a single standard to no standards at all. In this presentation, she sets down a path through the struggles of parents and children, men and women, with a deep concern for women's reproductive freedom. Since the terrorism attacks of September 11 and our horror at the Taliban's hostilities toward women, these concerns take on a special relevance and urgency.

Women and Friendship:

Ellen and Patricia O'Brien, authors of the New York Times Best Seller, "I Know Just What you Mean: The Power of Friendship in Women's Lives" have treated audiences to a lively discussion of the importance of this under-rated relationship in women's lives. As a duet, they show as well as describe this connection.