I am thrilled to announce that Stephen Smith, a brilliant editor who has driven coverage of some of the biggest stories in the country, is joining the Metro desk.

Steve comes to The Times from The Washington Post, where he has spent the last five years as the health and science editor - a role he took on in early 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic was reshaping the world.

To those who have worked with Steve, it's no surprise that The Post turned to him to run one of the biggest stories of our lifetime: Over the course of Steve's career in Washington, Boston and Miami he has earned a reputation as an editor who can steer big breaking news stories with one hand and shepherd thoughtful, ambitious enterprise with the other.

Steve and his team spent the months and years that followed churning out urgent, revelatory work about the pandemic and its long tentacles, memorably digging into the troubling drop in Americans' life expectancy in stories, graphics, videos and podcasts. Grim subject matter, but as anyone who has worked with Steve can attest, there is no story that can extinguish his good cheer.

Now, Steve will bring his boundless energy, monster work ethic and supersized vocabulary to Metro as an assistant editor, where he will work with a terrific team of reporters covering health, education (before running The Post's pandemic coverage, he was their education editor) and more.

"Steve is adored by his reporters, for good reason - he pushes them to tell human stories with impact, lifts their copy with elegant wordsmithing and is endlessly patient," said Matea Gold, who worked with Steve at The Post. "And his staff will soon get the benefit of his remarkable thank you missives, crafted with his trademark panache."

Before joining The Post, Steve was a reporter and then an editor at The Boston Globe where he directed breaking news coverage of the marathon bombing - work that won a Pulitzer Prize.

"Steve Smith is the guy every reporter wants as an editor and every editor wants as a colleague. He's smart, funny and collaborative and cares deeply about every story he touches," said Felice Belman, who worked with Steve in Boston. "At The Globe, where we sat next to each other for years, his approach to stories made our daily report livelier and more provocative. You won't necessarily want to laugh at Steve Smith's corny jokes, but you will."

He starts Feb. 10. Please join me in welcoming him.