McDonald joins the Washington Post’s op-ed editing team

The following excerpt announcement was sent out by The Washington Post editorial page director Fred Hiatt and editorial talent and logistics manager Nana Efua Mumford:

We are delighted to announce that Jen Balderama McDonald will be joining our op-ed editing team.

This is something of a homecoming for Jen: From 2002–5 she was a copy editor on The Post’s Business desk and then a copy editor and assigning editor on the Sunday Source. A Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 2012-13, she was an assigning editor at The New York Times Book review before moving to Chicago, where she worked as a freelance editor and writing instructor. She has been an adjunct faculty member in the Writer’s Studio at the University of Chicago’s Graham School and a mentor for the Center for Fiction’s NYC Emerging Writers Fellowship.

At the Post she will help edit our regular columnists and play a key role in finding and working with outside writers.

Jen grew up in California. After training and performing professionally as a ballet dancer, she got her start in journalism in the student newsroom at City College of San Francisco, then did a Dow Jones News Fund editing internship at the Santa Cruz Sentinel. At CNET News.com, in San Francisco, she was an associate editor in the Media section and the newsroom’s copy chief. She went from there to The Post and then to The Times, first as a copy editor on their National desk, then as a copy editor and assigning editor at the Book Review. She has most recently been based in Mexico City.

She plans to start working with us April 12. Please join us in welcoming her back.