An award-winning reporter, she has written extensively about ideas, books and the arts, and worked as an investigative reporter in the Culture Department.

Before joining the Times, Ms. Cohen worked at the Washington Post and Rolling Stone magazine. She started her journalism career at Newsday and New York Newsday as a member of the editorial board, and then became political editor for New York Newsday. She covered City Hall and the federal courts before becoming the editor of the Sunday opinion section, Currents.

She attended Cornell University and graduate school at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School.