Lauren Bohn

Reporter

The GroundTruth Project

Lauren is The GroundTruth Project’s Middle East correspondent.

Lauren is The GroundTruth Project’s inaugural Middle East correspondent, formerly a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine. She’s the co-founder of Foreign Policy Interrupted, a start-up incubator and fellowship program dedicated to changing the ratio and getting more women miked and bylined.She’s also the co-founder of SchoolCycle, a United Nations Foundation campaign in Malawi to provide bikes for adolescent girls to get to school.She was a 2010-2011 Fulbright fellow in Egypt, where she is the founding assistant editor of a new journal, the Cairo Review. A Pulitzer Center grantee, her ongoing reporting project “Egypt: The Country Outside the Square” is funded by the center. She was a 2012 Overseas Press Club fellow in Jerusalem with the Associated Press, and a 2013 UN Foundation Press fellow.A finalist for a 2012 Livingston Award, her multimedia work has been published by the New York Times, CNN, TIME, NBC News, the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Beast, Foreign Policy, Businessweek, Salon, Global Post, Christian Science Monitor, Rolling Stone Middle East, Marie Claire, and Ms. Magazine, among others. She’s reported from Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Syria, the UAE, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, Zambia, Malawi, and Nigeria.While an undergrad at NYU, she was was an intern at TIME Magazine, where she interviewed Marilyn Manson at midnight (and he told her to wear more eyeliner). She also interned at CNN under Soledad O’Brien and Christiane Amanpour. She graduated summa cum laude from New York University in May 2009 as a John W. Withers Memorial Award recipient and Presidential Scholar, with a degree in Media, Culture and Communication. She received Chicago’s Association for Women Journalists 2010 award for outstanding young female journalist and received her master’s degree from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism in June 2010.Originally from the ‘burbs of Philadelphia (#WawaForLife) where she was named an Archdiocesan scholar and a Champion of Caring for her work in Appalachia and the Dominican Republic, Lauren has a nerdy obsession with all things stationery (and peanut butter) and is usually downright amazed by everything she learns from the extraordinary and resilient people she gets to meet for a living.


A Sisi banner hangs in Cairo for the presidential election.

Egypt’s revolutionaries grieve ahead of Sisi re-election

Conflict

This week, Egypt will hold a presidential election, but observers believe the process is a charade. The only viable opposition candidates have been jailed, deported or silenced. And the only other candidate on the ballot, Moussa Mostafa Moussa, is actually a backer of Sisi, and has said he hopes the incumbent wins.

The world’s largest-ever generation sees burden and opportunity

Economics

Seven women peacemakers who should be on your radar

Politics

Dawn in the Creeks: Former Niger Delta militants move toward a more peaceful future

Conflict

Lacking a supportive community, many LGBT people in Turkey live double lives

Justice

Geeks in Gaza build businesses under duress

Gaza Sky Geeks, the territory’s first and only startup accelerator, propelled its members through last summer’s 50-day war.

Lady Gaga at the Globes

When they dissed the future Lady Gaga

Arts

Maybe everyone is an underdog at some point. Lady Gaga had a Facebook group named after her when she was a raven-eyed NYU freshman at 18. It told Stefani Germanotta, in myriad ways, that she would never be famous.

Chef Wareef Kassem Hamedo.

The making of a Syrian refugee celebrity chef — in Gaza

Culture

Chef Wareef Kassem Hamedo believes food isn’t just food, it has a soul. He dreamed of opening a restaurant in his hometown of Aleppo, Syria. As the conflict there rages on, Hamedo has finally opened his restaurant — but as a refugee in Gaza.

Said Hassan, manager of Gaza Sky Geeks, advises entrepreneurs at the group's pre-investment "boot camp."

Geeks in Gaza: Building businesses under duress

Development

Amid the scars of last year’s war with Israel, entrepreneurs in Gaza are trying to start new businesses. Here’s how a few have begun.

Madeleine Kulab

Here are 6 women trying — against all odds — to build a future for Gaza

Conflict

It’s been a year since the 2014 Israel-Gaza war. In the wake of the conflict, vast devastation can still be seen across the Gaza Strip’s scarred landscape. Despite the challenges of living in Gaza, many press forward. These six women are working to find their way despite the trying circumstances.