Who We Are

Slate’s staff.

Dan Check is chief executive officer of Slate. He previously served as director of technology. Before joining Slate, he managed the data warehouse at Catalist, a political data vendor. He is a graduate of Pomona College and currently lives in Washington.

Charlie Kammerer is president of Slate, where he focuses on developing ways for brands to tap into Slate’s audience through editorial content, podcasting, video, and custom programs. Kammerer joined Slate in 2017 after spending 20 years at Time Inc., where he was a brand builder and revenue generator across a diverse portfolio of brands, including Real Simple, Fortune, Food and Wine, Cooking Light, Golf, and This Old House. He’s based out of Slate’s Brooklyn office.

Staff and Contributor Biographies

Sam Adams is a Slate senior editor and the editor of Slate’s culture blog, Brow Beat. He was previously the editor of Criticwire, Indiewire’s film and TV criticism blog, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He lives in Philadelphia.

Holly Allen is a Slate designer. A graduate of the University of Georgia, Allen lives in Colorado with her husband, Tripper, and their twin boys, Alex and Max.

Allison Benedikt is Slate’s executive editor. Previously she was the film editor for the Village Voice, and has been a writer and editor at the Chicago Tribune and Brill’s Content. She’s a native of Youngstown, Ohio, graduated from the University of Michigan, and lives in Brooklyn.

Laura Bennett is Slate’s executive features director. She also edits the Slate Book Review. Previously she was the culture editor of Salon, and, before that, a staff writer at the New Republic. She’s a graduate of Yale University.

Pierre Bienaimé is an associate producer for The Gist with Mike Pesca. His written work has appeared on Vice, Al Jazeera, and Business Insider.

Jeffrey Bloomer is a Slate senior editor. He edits and writes for the human interest and culture sections.

Torie Bosch is the editor of Future Tense, which is a partnership of Slate, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State University. Future Tense’s mission is to explore how emerging technologies affect policy and society. She is a graduate of Penn State University.

Bill Carey is Slate’s director of strategy and audience development. Before joining Slate, he ran Sports Illustrated’s news and social media teams. A Northwestern University graduate, he lives in Brooklyn.

Christina Cauterucci is a staff writer on women and gender. She is the former arts editor of Washington City Paper and has worked on NPR’s arts desk. A two-time Georgetown University graduate, Cauterucci lives in Washington.

Jayson De Leon is a senior producer of Slate podcasts, working on What Next, Slate’s new daily news podcast. Previously, he launched and produced Trumpcast. Before joining Slate, De Leon was an intern at NPR’s Planet Money and worked in television at Showtime. He graduated from the University of Central Florida.

Matthew Dessem is the nights and weekends culture editor for Slate’s culture blog, Brow Beat, and the author of a biography of screenwriter and director Clyde Bruckman. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

Cameron Drews is a podcast producer at Slate. Previously, he worked on a variety of podcasts for Panoply, and before that, he produced daily news segments at WNYC in New York and KUOW in Seattle.

Daniel Engber writes about science, culture, and sports for Slate. He has a graduate degree in neuroscience and has worked in research labs at Columbia, UCSF, and the National Institutes of Health.

Jonathan L. Fischer is Slate’s technology editor. He previously worked as the arts editor and managing editor of Washington City Paper.

Jeff Friedrich is a Slate associate editor and helps sustain the growth of Slate Plus, the magazine’s membership program. He lives in Boston.

Benjamin Frisch is a podcast producer at Slate. Previously he co-created the Out on the Wire podcast with Jessica Abel, and his work has appeared on NPR, Love + Radio, the Guardian, and more. He has an MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design and is the author of the graphic novel, The Fun Family.

Vicky Gan is a Slate copy editor. Before joining Slate, she was a copy editor and podcast producer at the Urban Institute and reported for publications including CityLab and New York magazine.

April Glaser is a staff writer covering technology and business stories for Slate. She formerly was a reporter at the tech news website Recode, and before that, Glaser wrote for Wired. Prior to journalism, Glaser worked at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other nonprofits focusing on tech policy.

Henry Grabar is a staff writer at Slate. He likes buildings, trains, and maps.

Ruth Graham is a Slate staff writer covering religion and culture. Her reporting has also appeared the New York Times Magazine, Politico Magazine, Marie Claire, and many others. She lives in a small town in New Hampshire.

Rachelle Hampton is a Slate editorial assistant. Her prior employers include the New Republic, Smithsonian Magazine, and New America. She is a graduate of Northwestern University.

Elliot Hannon is a staff writer at Slate covering breaking news of all sorts. Previously, he spent four years in New Delhi covering India for NPR and Time magazine.

Mary Harris is the host and managing editor of What Next, Slate’s new daily news podcast. For the past decade, she has reported throughout the public radio system, for NPR, Marketplace, and WNYC. Her curiosity has taken her to needle exchanges and influenza laboratories; she’s even reported on her own treatments for breast cancer. Before working in public radio, she was a producer at ABC News.

Danielle Hewitt is a podcast producer at Slate. She produces the Waves and Spoiler Specials. She graduated from Georgetown University and lives in D.C.

Aymann Ismail is a Slate staff writer. Before joining Slate, he was the video editor/photographer for Animal New York magazine, where he documented violent protests in Egypt, climbed bridges above the East River, explored subway tunnels with graffiti writers, and asked pet owners what they thought their dogs were thinking.

Derreck Johnson is a Slate web designer. He is a graduate of LIU Post and a born-and-bred New Yorker (currently residing in Los Angeles). Prior to Slate, he held a position as a web production designer at Time Inc. for Essence.com and Essence Festival.

Inkoo Kang is a Slate staff writer. She was previously the chief TV critic at MTV News.

Fred Kaplan writes the War Stories column for Slate as well as occasional pieces on culture and consumer electronics. He is the author of Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist), 1959: The Year Everything Changed (2009), Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power (2008), and The Wizards of Armageddon (1983), as well as a former staff reporter for the Boston Globe, having been its military correspondent, Moscow bureau chief, and New York bureau chief. A regular writer on jazz and hi-fi for Stereophile, he has also written on a variety of subjects for the New York Times, New York Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Scientific American, and others. A long time ago, he was the foreign and defense policy adviser to Rep. Les Aspin. He graduated from Oberlin College and has a Ph.D. in political science from MIT. He lives in Brooklyn.

Joshua Keating is a senior editor at Slate focusing on international news, foreign policy, and social science. He is the author of Invisible Countries. Before coming to Slate, he was an editor for six years at Foreign Policy. A native of Brooklyn and graduate of Oberlin College, he currently lives in Washington.

Dan Kois edits and writes for Slate’s human interest and culture departments. He is also a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and was the founding editor of New York’s Vulture blog. He wrote a book about the Hawaiian musician Israel Kamakawiwo’ole called Facing Future. He’s the co-author, with Isaac Butler, of The World Only Spins Forward, a history of Angels in America, and is writing a book called How to Be a Family.

Lisa Larson-Walker is Slate’s art director, based in Brooklyn. She also is the editor of Slate’s Instagram account. She is a graduate of the Cooper Union School of Art, and previously worked at Newsweek and the Daily Beast.

Josh Levin is Slate’s editorial director and hosts the sports podcast Hang Up and Listen. Before coming to Slate, he wrote for the Washington City Paper. Levin, a native of New Orleans, graduated from Brown University.

Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate and the host of the podcast Amicus. She writes Supreme Court Dispatches and has covered the Microsoft trial and other legal issues for Slate. Before joining Slate as a freelancer in 1999, she worked for a family law firm in Reno, Nevada. Her work has appeared in the New Republic, Elle, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Washington Post. She is co-author of Me v. Everybody: Absurd Contracts for an Absurd World, a legal humor book. She is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Law School.

Lowen Liu is Slate’s deputy editor.

Lili Loofbourow is a staff writer at Slate. She writes about culture and politics.

Chad Lorenz is Slate’s news editor. A graduate of the University of Nebraska, he previously worked at the Washingtonian magazine and the Washington Post.

J. Bryan Lowder is a Slate associate editor. He writes and edits for Outward, Slate’s LGBTQ section, and for the culture section.

Evan Mackinder is a senior audience engagement editor for Slate. Prior to joining Slate, he managed social media and engagement strategy at the Sunlight Foundation and OpenSecrets.org. A graduate of the University of Michigan and a native Michigander, he currently lives in Washington.

Aaron Mak is a Slate editorial assistant. He’s previously written for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Politico.

Marissa Martinelli is a Slate assistant editor and a graduate of the University of St. Andrews. She writes for Brow Beat.

Ben Mathis-Lilley is Slate’s chief news blogger. His prior employers include New York magazine, BuzzFeed, and Taco Bell.

Susan Matthews is a Slate senior editor overseeing the science and health section. Before joining Slate, she launched and edited Audubon.org. A graduate of Dartmouth College and NYU’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program, she lives in Brooklyn.

Natalie Matthews-Ramo is a web and interactive designer for Slate. She is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design.

Seth Maxon is Slate’s night editor. Previously, he was a producer for WNYC’s The Takeaway and has written for the Atlantic, NPR’s Planet Money, the Columbia Journalism Review, In These Times, and others. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Chicago.

Abby McIntyre is Slate’s copy chief. She was previously an editor at Politico and is a graduate of Smith College.

Laura Miller is a books and culture columnist for Slate. She was a co-founder of Salon.com, where she was the New York editorial director and a staff writer. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s, the Guardian and the New York Times Magazine, as well as the New York Times Book Review, where she wrote the “Last Word” column for two years. She is the author of The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia.

Jim Newell is a Slate staff writer covering politics. He previously served on the staffs of Salon, Gawker, and Wonkette, and his freelance work has been featured in numerous publications including Bookforum, the Guardian, the New Republic, the Baffler, the American Prospect, and the Daily Beast. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Newell lives in Washington.

Molly Olmstead is an assistant social media editor for Slate. She also writes for the Slatest. She is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism and lives in Washington.

Rebecca Onion is a Slate staff writer and the author of Innocent Experiments. Her writing has also appeared in Aeon Magazine, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Atlantic online, and the Boston Globe’s Ideas section. A graduate of Yale University, she holds a Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Texas at Austin, and lives in Athens, Ohio.

Will Oremus is Slate’s senior technology writer and a contributor to the Future Tense blog. He reports on emerging technologies, tech policy, and digital culture. Previously, he wrote for the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and the New Yorker online.

Daniel Mallory Ortberg writes Slate’s Dear Prudence column. He is the co-founder of the Toast and the author of Texts From Jane Eyre and The Merry Spinster.

Nitish Pahwa is a Slate copy editor. He graduated from Michigan State University and lives in New York.

Shannon Palus is a staff writer for Slate, covering health, wellness, and beyond. Her work has appeared many other places including Popular Science, Scientific American, the Atlantic, and Wirecutter.

Willa Paskin is Slate’s TV critic. She previously worked at Salon and Vulture, among other places. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago.

Mike Pesca is the host of Slate’s daily podcast The Gist. He was an NPR correspondent for more than 10 years, most of which were spent covering sports. He has guest hosted the public radio programs On the Media, The Brian Lehrer Show, The Leonard Lopate Show, Science Friday, Left Right and Center, Bullseye, On Point, To the Point, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, and Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. He has won two Edward R. Murrow broadcasting awards and regularly appears on MSNBC and CNN.

T.J. Raphael is the senior producer of the Slate podcast network. Prior to Slate, she worked as an editor at America’s largest public radio broadcaster, WNYC. Before her time in radio and podcasting, Raphael had a life in print as a reporter and editor for Folio: Magazine, AOL, the Legislative Gazette, the New York Daily News, and the Village Voice. Her work has been cited by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, the Economist, the Washington Post, and USA Today, among others. A native New Yorker, she lives in Brooklyn with her border collie, Smokey.

Dawnthea Price is a Slate copy editor. Previously, she was a copy editor at Mic and a reporter at the Free Lance–Star.

Gabriel Roth is Slate’s editorial director of audio and the editorial director of Slate Plus. He is the author of The Unknowns, a novel.

William Saletan is Slate’s national correspondent. He writes about science, technology, politics, and society. He is the author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War, which argues that pro-choice and pro-life activists have lost the abortion debate to a third constituency: libertarian conservatives.

Daniel Schroeder is an associate producer for The Gist with Mike Pesca and an occasional culture writer. He lives in Brooklyn.

Heather Schwedel is a Slate staff writer. Previously, she worked in the editorial department at Workman Publishing.

Faith Smith is the executive producer of Slate Live and deputy director of Future Tense, a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University. She was previously the director of events and external relations at New America. She’s a graduate of UCLA and lives outside of D.C.

Jeremy Stahl is a Slate senior editor. Before joining Slate, he worked as a sports editor at Yahoo U.K. in London and as a contributor for the Riviera Times in Nice, France.

Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate​. He covers science, the law, and LGBTQ issues.

Dana Stevens is Slate’s movie critic. Previously, she wrote the Slate television and pop-culture column Surfergirl for two years. She has also written for the New York Times, the Washington Post Book World, Bookforum, and the Atlantic. She has a Ph.D. in comparative literature from UC–Berkeley and lives in Brooklyn.

Seth Stevenson is a longtime Slate contributor who has written about advertising, business, culture and technology. His work has appeared in the New York Times, New York, the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg Businessweek, among other publications. He has received multiple Lowell Thomas awards from the Society of American Travel Writers, won the 2005 Online Journalism Award for commentary, and was nominated for a 2011 National Magazine Award for Digital Media. He’s also the author of Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World.

June Thomas is senior managing producer of the Slate podcast network. She was born and raised in Manchester, England.

Chau Tu is an associate editor for Slate Plus. Before joining Slate, she was a reporter and producer at Science Friday and Marketplace. She now lives in Brooklyn, but Los Angeles will always be home.

Aria Velasquez is an audience engagement editor at Slate. Prior to joining Slate, she worked on the social media team at ThinkProgress, where she occasionally wrote about culture. Her work has also appeared at the Establishment. Velasquez is an Atlanta native and a graduate of the University of Georgia. She currently lives in Washington.

Josh Voorhees is a Slate senior writer. Before joining Slate, he reported on politics and policy for Politico and Greenwire. He is a native of western New York, a graduate of Davidson College.

Jordan Weissmann is Slate’s senior business and economics correspondent. Before joining Slate, he was an editor at the Atlantic and staff writer for the National Law Journal. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post.

Forrest Wickman is Slate’s culture editor. He lives in Brooklyn.

Megan Wiegand is Slate’s senior managing editor. She is a graduate of Ohio State University and the Missouri School of Journalism.

Mary Wilson is a senior podcast producer. Previously, she covered politics in Pennsylvania for the state’s public radio network and NPR. Her work has appeared on The Takeaway, on Marketplace, and in TheBurg magazine. She graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx.

Jenny G. Zhang is an audience engagement editor at Slate. Before that, she oversaw newsletters at Eater. She lives in New York.