Frances Stead Sellers is an associate editor of The Washington Post, where she has worked as a senior writer, a senior editor and as a key moderator for the newsroom’s live platform, Washington Post Live, where she interviews lead thinkers across politics, the arts and the sciences. 

Frances ran the newsroom’s Health, Science and Environmental desk during the battle over healthcare reform, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. She was subsequently editor of The Post’s signature Style section, in charge of cultural coverage. 

As a senior writer, Frances was a key member of the team that covered the Covid-19 pandemic, with a particular interest in public health and primary care—topics she focused on for The Post’s award-winning coverage of the life expectancy crisis in the United States. 
Sellers joined The Washington Post from Civilization, the bi-monthly magazine of the Library of Congress, which won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in its first year of publication. Frances started her career as the manuscript editor of Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Frances is often called upon to explain U.S. current events on the BBC and other international outlets.  She is a frequent moderator for idea festivals and academic conferences and leads the twice-yearly Future Trends Forum for the BankInter Foundation in Madrid, bringing together experts to explore innovations designed to tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems. 

A native of Great Britain, Frances graduated from Oxford University and came to the United States as a British Thouron Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.