William Wan is an enterprise reporter focused on narrative and high-impact stories at The Washington Post.

He has been a staff writer for the Post since 2005. In that time, he has reported from more than 20 countries, served as a key health reporter during the pandemic, covered the post-revolutionary Egypt, chronicled human rights abuses in China and flown across Asia with then-President Obama.

He was one of the Post’s reporters on the 2010 Pulitzer finalist team covering the Fort Hood shootings. For his reporting on the religion beat, he was named the 2010 and 2011 Supple Religion Writer of the Year. In 2011, the American Society of News Editors awarded him for distinguished writing on diversity.

During a two-year stint covering national security and U.S. foreign policy, he chronicled the diplomacy of then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. He began writing about China in 2010 and served for three years as the Post’s foreign correspondent in Beijing.

For his work examining the unintended consequences of Communist Party policies on Chinese families, Boston University presented Wan with the 2014 Hugo Shong Award. His coverage of government abuses also won the 18th Human Rights Award for Features from Amnesty International and the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong and the 2014 Award for Excellence by the Asian American Journalists Association. His reporting on corruption and secrecy amid China’s cops and courts won the National Headliners Award for International News and was a finalist for the Livingston Award.

In 2018, he began covering covering health & science for the Post. His coverage of mental health during the pandemic contributed to government action and an unprecedented increased in federal funding. His coronavirus stories won several of health journalism’s top prizes — including the NIHCM Award, the Association of Health Care Journalists’ features award and the Public Service Award from the American Association of Suicidology.

Wan grew up living on several continents, with most of his childhood spent in the Canadian prairies and the Mississippi delta. He previously worked as a metro reporter for the Los Angeles Times and as the Baltimore Sun’s main rewrite reporter.