Waleed Aly is one of Australia’s most respected and versatile media talents. He is a broadcaster, author, academic and musician. Waleed is co-host of Network TEN’s The Project, live to air weeknights on Network 10. In 2014 Waleed was awarded the prestigious Walkley Award for Commentary, Analysis, Opinion and Critique.
Within his first year as a full-time presenter on The Project, Waleed took home the 2016 Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Australian TV Personality, and Silver Logie Award for Best Presenter and delivered the 2016 Andrew Olle Media Lecture. Waleed won the Silver Logie Award for Best Presenter again in 2017, received another nomination for the Silver Logie in 2019, and has been nominated twice more for the Gold Logie in 2017 and 2019.
Waleed has tackled comedy as both a writer and presenter for SBS’s Salam Café, along with hard-hitting news as a host of ABC radio’s Mornings program in Melbourne. He has presented sporting analysis on ABC News 24’s The Drum, and political analysis on Q&A and BBC World. In 2010 he hosted The Late Session for SBS, a lively talk show set in a dinner party environment canvassing a wide range of contemporary topics. In 2019, Waleed co-hosted Australia Talks alongside Annabel Crabb, a live TV event exploring the results of an ABC national survey into the lives of average Australians. Through this as well as regular appearances on Offsiders, Meet The Press, The 7.30 Report and Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, Waleed has become widely recognised and trusted by audiences across Australia.
In 2005, Waleed was made a White Ribbon Day Ambassador for the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and was named one of The Bulletin magazine’s ‘Smart 100’ in 2007. He was invited to the Prime Minister’s 2020 Summit in 2008 and in 2011 he was named Victoria’s Local Hero in the Australian of the Year Awards for his work in fostering cross-cultural understanding in the community.
He has been recognized with various other awards including the Voltaire Award for Free Speech, and the United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Award for Social Cohesion with producer Tom Whitty. Waleed is the author of People Like Us: How Arrogance is Dividing Islam and the West, which was shortlisted for several awards including Best Newcomer at the 2008 ABIA (Australian Book Industry Awards).
Waleed answered fundamental questions about leadership and what really matters to him in I Know This to Be True, a book series created in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and worked with Bachar Houli on his memoir Bachar Houli: Faith, Football and Family. Waleed is almost certainly the only terrorism expert in the world to have written a formal harmonic and structural analysis of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. He made his Melbourne International Comedy Festival debut in 2013 alongside Charlie Pickering in ‘The World’s Problems Solved with Charlie Pickering and Waleed Aly’. Waleed was Radio National’s Drive show host from 2012 for three years, co-hosting The Project on Friday nights during this period. Currently, he presents The Minefield on Radio National with ethicist Scott Stephens every week.
His Quarterly Essay Uncivil Wars: How Contempt Is Corroding Democracy, co-written with Stephens, was published in September 2022. Waleed is a lecturer in politics at Monash University, working in their Global Terrorism Research Centre.
