Gail Collins was named Editorial Page Editor for The New York Times in June 2001. She had been a columnist of The New York Times's Op-Ed page since November 2000, after being on special assignment as an Op-Ed columnist writing a twice-a-week column on the 2000 presidential campaign. She joined the editorial board of The New York Times in September 1995 and has hosted The Times's cable news program, "This Week Close-Up" on New York 1 since 1997.

Prior to that she was a columnist at New York Newsday since 1991 and before that, at The New York Daily News from 1985 to 1991. From 1982 to 1985, Ms. Collins was a financial reporter at United Press International in New York.

From 1977 to 1979, she was a freelance writer; a senior editor for Connecticut Magazine; a regular contributor to The Times; a weekly columnist for the Connecticut Business Journal; host of public affairs program for Connecticut Public Television, and instructor in journalism at Southern Connecticut State College.

Founder of the Connecticut State News Bureau, Ms. Collins operated the bureau from 1972 to 1977, when it was sold. The CSNB provides coverage of the state capitol and Connecticut politics. When it was sold, it was the largest news service of its kind in the country, with more than 30 weekly and daily newspaper clients.

Ms. Collins received a B.A. degree in journalism from Marquette University, Milwaukee, in 1967 and an M.A. degree in government from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1971.

She is a recipient of an Associated Press award for commentary, 1994; a Women in Communications Matrix Award, 1989; a Meyer Berger Award, Columbia University, 1987, and was a Bagehot Fellow in Economic Journalism, Columbia University, 1981-1982.

She is the author of "America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines" (William Morrow 2003) and "Scorpion Tongues" (William Morrow 1998). She is also the author, with Dan Collins, of "The Millennium Book" (Doubleday 1991).