BIO

Mercedes Stephenson

Host Mercedes Stephenson has been named one of Maclean's Magazine's 25 Best and Brightest Canadians under age 30, and is a member of Maclean's 50, fifty of Canada's most influential personalities.  She is also the host and producer of the national television series The URC Investigates on ichannel.

Mercedes has worked with CBC, CTV, and Global Television, and frequently serves as
an analyst for live breaking news stories
and national specials including: the Manley Report (CBC); the capture of Saddam Hussein (Global); CTV's Federal Budget Special; the death of the Hussein brothers (CBC); and Canadian soldiers' deaths in Afghanistan
(CBC, CTV). 

Mercedes interned at the Pentagon while studying public policy, economics and media ethics at Georgetown University.

Mercedes received the inaugural Young Alumni award from The Fund For American Studies
in Washington DC for her work hosting and producing URC Investigates and was previously awarded The Institute for Political Journalism and Georgetown University's Frank Shakespeare Award for Broadcast Journalism
for excellence in broadcasting.

Mercedes has studied military strategy at the University of Calgary and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was a member of the MIT Working Group on Combating Catastrophic Terrorism at the Center for International Studies.

She has served as a policy analyst and author for national think tanks in Canada, as a Koch Fellow in Defense and National Security Policy in the U.S., as a Department of National Defence Master of Arts Scholar, and is a past recipient
of the Steinhauer Award of Distinction from the Government of Alberta.  

Mercedes likes Canada, classical music, and raising awareness of the plight, protection
and rehabilitation of orphaned grizzly bear cubs. She dislikes narrow mindedness, having to write things by hand… and deadlines.