Judges

Lydia Polgreen

Opinion Columnist, The New York Times
National Judge

Lydia Polgreen became an opinion columnist at The New York Times in 2022.

Previously, she served as managing director of Gimlet, a podcast studio at Spotify, and as editor-in-chief of HuffPost, leading a team of hundreds of journalists publishing 16 editions across the globe in nine languages. Her leadership at HuffPost followed a 15-year career at The New York Times that included roles as associate masthead editor, deputy international editor, South Africa bureau chief, a correspondent for the New Delhi bureau and chief of the West Africa bureau.

Before joining The Times, Polgreen was a staff writer for the Orlando Sentinel and the Albany Times Union. She was a 2006 recipient of the George Polk Award for foreign reporting. She received the 2009 Livingston Award for international reporting for her series, “The Spoils,” an account of how mineral wealth brought misery and exploitation to much of Africa. In 2011, Polgreen was awarded the Columbia University Medal for Excellence.