Mary Kate Cary

Mary Kate Cary is Assistant Vice President and Deputy Chief of Staff for the President of the University of Virginia. In that role, she handles presidential communications and strategic initiatives. Ms. Cary served as an adjunct professor in the University of Virginia’s Politics Department from 2019 to 2025, teaching small seminars for third- and fourth-year students: “Political Speechwriting,” and “Democracy Out Loud,” which studies the greatest speeches in American political history. Ms. Cary also co-taught “Election 2020” and “Election 2024,” alongside a Democratic professor, leading the only political science class in America taught from both sides of the aisle. Ms. Cary was previously a Senior Fellow for Presidential Studies at UVA’s Miller Center, serving from 2017 to 2023.

In 2021, Ms. Cary served on UVA’s Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry, which produced the University’s policy on free speech. She is the director of Think Again @ UVA, an initiative to promote free speech, viewpoint diversity, critical thinking, and intellectual humility through student-facing programming. In 2024, she won the national Heterodox Academy’s Open Inquiry Leadership Award. She recently spoke at the 2025 Global Free Speech Summit, and has appeared on numerous podcasts, webinars, and panel discussions relating to free expression and constructive disagreement.

She is a former White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush, and from 2009-2017 was a columnist and political commentator at US News & World Report. She holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Virginia.