Mara Hvistendahl writes about national security and technology. Before joining The Intercept, she was a National Fellow at New America and the China bureau chief for Science. Her writing has also appeared in The Atlantic, The Economist, and Wired, and she has appeared as a commentator on the BBC, CBS, MSNBC, and NPR.

Mara is the author of “The Scientist and the Spy,” on an FBI counterintelligence investigation involving industrial espionage, and “Unnatural Selection,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Book Prize.  She lived in Shanghai for eight years and is now based in Minneapolis. She speaks Spanish and Chinese.