We are delighted to announce two new hires for NYT Cooking.
Alexa Weibel will join The Times as a senior staff editor. Lex comes to us from the magazine Every Day With Rachael Ray, where she was a senior food editor, writing and editing stories, assigning and developing recipes, working closely with the test kitchen, and producing material about cooking for the magazine’s social media channels. She has also been a cookbook editor, a copy editor, a restaurant critic, a music critic and, on weekends, worked as a line cook at the restaurant Diner in Brooklyn. She holds degrees from Northwestern University, where she studied journalism, and from the French Culinary Institute.
Lex impressed us with her smarts, energy, deep food expertise and obvious passion for cooking. Her role on our desk will include assigning and editing recipes for NYT Cooking alongside Krysten Chambrot and Margaux Laskey, assisting with the creation of our cooking guides, jumping in on special projects, and just generally helping us continue to grow by working with our expanding stable of recipe developers to generate new and better recipes for the site and app. She will elevate the work we do, and we are counting the minutes until she joins us. Lex will report to Emily Weinstein and starts on Nov. 26.
Kiera Wright-Ruiz will join The Times as a social media editor. Kiera comes to us from Google, where she managed audience growth on Local Guides. Before that, run the social media team at Genius Kitchen (formerly Food.com). Kiera is a graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in journalism.
In this new role for NYT Cooking, Kiera will head up programming and voice for our Facebook account. She will work closely with our editors, with the photo editor and with our new video producers to share our work off-platform in a way that amplifies its reach, building an active community around our news and service journalism.
A skilled digital storyteller, Kiera has an impressive track record for engaging new audiences in creative ways, and we are very excited to have her on board. Kiera will report to Emily Fleischaker and starts on Dec. 3. In the meantime, check out her amazing ceramic mug-making skills (and great food photos) on Instagram: @kierawrr.
Please join us in welcoming Kiera and Lex!
— Sam