Ann M. Simmons
Ann M. Simmons is an award-winning journalist with over three decades of reporting experience across the globe and expertise in Russia and the former Soviet empire.
Most recently as Moscow bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, Ann covered the political, economic and social intricacies of Vladimir Putin's Russia, life under his repressive regime, and the War in Ukraine. On the ground in Moscow, she managed a team reporting on Russia's military and defense sector, the volatile economy, tyranny in Belarus, political upheaval in Central Asia, and conflict in the South Caucasus.
Ann first reported from Russia for TIME magazine in the 1990s. She helped cover the failed coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the collapse of the USSR, and Russia's efforts to transform from a socialist to market-oriented economy. She returned to Russia in 2014 on a social justice reporting fellowship awarded by the International Center for Journalists.
Before joining the Journal, Ann was a global development writer/editor at the Los Angeles Times, where she earlier served as bureau chief in Nairobi and Johannesburg, and later as a video and multimedia journalist. She has reported on many of the world's most important news stories, including the War in Iraq, the Syrian refugee crisis, and Hurricane Katrina. She was part of an LA Times reporting team whose coverage of wildfires in Southern California won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News in 2004.
Born in London, Ann holds a double honors bachelor's in Russian and Norwegian from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and a master's from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she will be honored in May 2025 with an alumni award for her outstanding contributions to journalism.
She was a Nieman journalism fellow at Harvard, Class of 2003.