A New Deputy Editor in Times Opinion

We are delighted to announce that Ellen Cushing is joining Times Opinion from The Atlantic to be the deputy editor of the special projects team, where she'll be responsible for spearheading some of the department's most ambitious work.

When we set out to fill this role, we knew we were looking for a unicorn: an editor who has demonstrated the ability to think expansively and creatively in different story forms, and who can also produce work that is stunning on the sentence level. It turned out we were describing Ellen.

Before her latest stint as a writer on The Atlantic's culture desk, Ellen served as the magazine's special projects editor. In her four years in that role, Ellen led several packages and initiatives we admired from afar, including Shadowland , a multiyear project about conspiracy theories (later made into a Peacock series); a climate vertical and weekly newsletter; a long-form memoir about escaping persecution in Xinjiang, China; and " The Great American Novels ." She also managed the magazine's experimental storytelling team and is one of the people you can thank for digitizing The Atlantic's archives .

Ellen started her career in Oakland, Calif., at The East Bay Express, her hometown alt-weekly, where she edited culture coverage and wrote a column about bars. (Yes, it was a great gig.) She then joined San Francisco magazine as a senior editor, where she contributed to a special issue on Oakland that was honored by the American Society of Magazine Editors. In 2015 she moved to BuzzFeed News, where she eventually became the special projects editor and managed the publication's accountability coverage of sexual misconduct. She joined The Atlantic in 2018, running technology coverage before moving into the special projects role. (Are you sensing a pattern yet?)

In her most recent role, writing full-time for the magazine's culture section, she has charted food delivery's rise to dominance , implored us all to party more , written personal essays about baseball and dishwashers , delved into forgotten World War II history and eaten dog food . In June she won the James Beard Foundation's Craig Claiborne Distinguished Criticism Award for her writing on (human) food.

If it's not yet evident, we are thrilled she will be joining The Times and helping to run Opinion's special projects. Her first day will be Aug. 17. Please join me in welcoming her.

- Meeta Agrawal