Our Team

INTERIM DIRECTOR

Kate Bolick (starting on August 3, 2026)

Lecturer of English
 
Winner of the 2023 Fred Strebeigh and Linda Peterson Prize for Excellence in Teaching by Instructional Faculty.
 
Kate Bolick is a journalist and author. Her first book, Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own, was a New York Times Notable Book and appeared in multiple translations around the world. Her introduction to the new Penguin Classics edition of The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland, and Selected Writings, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was published in 2019, and she is one of four contributors to the Library of America’s 2019 essay collection March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women. Her introduction to the Library of America’s reissue of Nancy Hale’s 1942 bestselling novel, The Prodigal Women, was published in 2023, and her personal exploration of the history of friendship, Every Friend a Phantom, is forthcoming from Random House in 2027. Bolick’s work has appeared in The Atlantic, Bookforum, The Boston Globe, ELLE, ELLE Decor, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The New Yorker (online), Travel + Leisure, The Wall Street Journal, and Vogue, among other publications. Previously, she was executive editor of Domino, a columnist for The Boston Globe’s Ideas Section, and online literary editor of The Atlantic.
 
You can contact her at: kate.bolick@yale.edu.
 

DIRECTOR

Haley Cohen Gilliland, Davenport ’11 (ON PARENTAL LEAVE UNTIL SPRING 2027)

Haley Cohen Gilliland has served as the director of the Yale Journalism Initiative since Fall 2022. Before returning to Yale, where she was a History Major and Yale Journalism Initiative Scholar, she spent seven years at The Economist–reporting from Argentina, Uruguay, London, and Los Angeles–and three years as an independent journalist focused on feature writing. Her first book, A Flower Traveled in My Blood, a narrative nonfiction history of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, was published in July of 2025 and was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a top ten book of the year by the Atlantic and The Washington Post, and a top 100 book of the year by The New York Times, TIME, NPR, and others. You can learn more about her work here and email her at haley.cohengilliland@yale.edu. (Haley will be on parental leave until Spring 2027)

 

STUDENT FELLOWS

Tina Li, Pierson ‘27

 

Tina Li is a rising senior from Norfolk, Virginia, majoring in English. She previously served as Managing Editor of The New Journal and as an associate beat reporter for the Yale Daily News. Last summer, she reported for The Sacramento Bee, and this summer she will report on technology for The Wall Street Journal in San Francisco. She has also freelanced for The New Haven Independent and The Frisc, and on campus has written for The Yale Herald and BRINK. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, writing poetry, and seeing plays. Contact her at:  tina.jh.li@yale.edu.

Lily Belle Poling, Branford ‘27 

Lily Belle Poling is a junior in Branford College studying English literature. She was a managing editor of the Yale Daily News, where she previously covered housing and homelessness and designed the print paper. Lily Belle has covered a wide range of topics for The Blade in Toledo, Ohio, and for The Current, which covers coastal Georgia. This summer, she will be reporting in New York City for The Wall Street Journal’s real estate desk. She is from Montgomery, Alabama, and is always on the lookout for a glass of Southern sweet tea. Contact her at: lily.poling@yale.edu.