Mellissa Fung

Mellissa Fung is a veteran journalist, author, and award-winning filmmaker. She has produced original award-winning documentaries for Al-Jazeera International, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and TV Ontario, among others. She covered the war in Afghanistan, leading to her best-selling first book, Under an Afghan Sky, which chronicled her experience as a hostage after she was kidnapped while on assignment in Kabul in 2008. Since then, Fung has focused on human rights reporting, with a focus on women and children in conflict. She is a frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail, and her work has also appeared in The Huffington Post, The Toronto Star, and on PBS. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in New York. She was appointed as an officer to the Order of Canada in 2024 for her work with women in conflict. She lives in Toronto with her husband Paul and her scruffy rescue dog, Sammy.