A Visual Deputy for Science

When I was preparing to come to the Science desk, I had great conversations with Joe and other leaders at The Times about the hopes and dreams for the future of science coverage. What I found was that all their visions had one big thing in common: Everyone agreed there was a great opportunity for our coverage to be strikingly visual. Excellent graphics to help explain complicated concepts. Brilliant photography and illustration to make the wonder of scientific discovery more visceral. And, of course, compelling video, at a moment when digital news consumers increasingly want to get their information by watching instead of reading.

In the months to come, as we look to seize all those opportunities, it's crucial that we have someone to lead us in those efforts. I'm delighted to announce that Marcelle Hopkins, a ten-year veteran of The Times and a superb leader in visual journalism, will be joining the Science desk as our visual deputy.

When Marcelle came to The Times in 2016, after seven years as a news producer at Al Jazeera, it was to help launch The Daily 360 , The Times's audacious experiment in virtual reality. The following year, she became a deputy editor on the Video team, overseeing dozens of video journalists producing news and features. In 2018, a visual investigation she worked on, about a Syrian chemical weapons attack, was the recipient of a News and Documentary Emmy Award.

After a brief hiatus at the Knight Journalism fellowship at Stanford, Marcelle returned to The Times in 2020 as the visual editor for the Special Projects team, where she has brought her huge range of skills to a wide variety of visual explorations - about pasta tourism , the hidden LGBT history of Harlem , the scary future of New York flooding and, last but certainly not least, Science's own wildly popular series about the mathematics of everyday life .

"Marcelle is one of the more impressive people I've had the pleasure of working with at The Times," Amanda Kludt, head of the Newsroom Projects & Initiatives team, said. "She is the rare person who can have a vision, execute on it and bring everyone else along for the ride. Even though her role on my desk is visual in nature, she's taken on editing, leading projects and keeping everyone on the same page. And she's a pure delight to work with."

Steve Duenes had this to say: "Marcelle has a serious and compelling vision for journalism that is substantive and innovative. Her enthusiasm for almost every subject comes through in the storytelling but also in the satisfaction her colleagues find when working with her. I'm very excited to see the special things she'll contribute to our Science report."

Though this will be her first job focusing entirely on science coverage, Marcelle is a lifelong science lover. For years, she and her mother, a retired biologist, attended the World Science Festival in New York together, with her mom dragging her to the biology events and Marcelle dragging her mom to the physics events. When the discovery of the Higgs Boson was announced in 2012, she stayed up until 4 a.m. to watch the press conference at CERN even though she wasn't even covering it.

Marcelle's first day will be Monday, August 10. Please join me in welcoming her to the Science desk!

- Bill