Rachel Maddow (born April 1, 1973, in Castro Valley, California, U.S.) is an American political commentator, television host, and radio personality best known as the host of "The Rachel Maddow Show" (2008– ) on the cable news channel MSNBC. Maddow grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area with her father, an attorney, and her mother, a school administrator. She attended Stanford University, where she earned a B.A. in public policy in 1994. As a senior she received the John Gardner Fellowship for public service, which allowed her to work with the AIDS Legal Referral Panel in San Francisco and become involved in prison AIDS advocacy. During her time at Stanford she publicly came out as a lesbian by posting an open letter throughout her dormitory. In 1995 Maddow went to the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She completed her doctorate (D.Phil.) in politics in 2001. Her dissertation examined HIV/AIDS and health care reform in British and American prisons. Before finishing her degree, Maddow returned to the United States and settled in western Massachusetts. While continuing her prison AIDS advocacy and completing her dissertation, she held a variety of jobs. Her broadcasting career began after she answered an open audition at a local radio station in Holyoke, Massachusetts, for a “news girl” on a morning program. She won the position and served as the host’s on-air sidekick before eventually receiving her own show on a Northampton station. In 2004 a friend passed recordings of Maddow’s work to producers at Air America, a newly formed liberal talk radio network. She was hired as a news reader and soon became co-host of "Unfiltered" with Lizz Winstead and Chuck D. After the program ended in 2005, she was given her own weekday program, "The Rachel Maddow Show," which later expanded from one hour to two. Through her radio work she developed a reputation as a knowledgeable and policy-focused commentator. While continuing on radio, Maddow began appearing on MSNBC in 2005 as a guest on Tucker Carlson’s political talk program, where she frequently debated conservative viewpoints. Over the following years she appeared regularly on various cable news and political discussion programs. After Carlson’s show ended in 2008, Maddow became a frequent guest host on MSNBC’s "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." Her television program, "The Rachel Maddow Show," premiered on MSNBC on September 8, 2008, combining news coverage, political commentary, and interviews with figures from politics, culture, and academia. The program quickly became one of the network’s most prominent political shows. In addition to broadcasting, Maddow has written several books. Her first, "Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power" (2012), examined U.S. military policy since the Vietnam War. She later published "Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth" (2019), about the global oil and gas industry, and "Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House" (2020), written with Michael Yarvitz and based on her podcast about former U.S. vice president Spiro Agnew.