Barbara Crossette is one of the best-known reporters at the Times, and a leading American media expert on South Asia.

Barbara Crossette became The New York Times U.N. bureau chief in September 1994 after having served as a senior editor since January 1993. In 2001, she stepped down from the post to serve as a contributor to the Times.

Previously she served as a correspondent in the Times's Washington bureau from November 1991 to January 1993, as bureau chief in New Delhi from August 1988 to July 1991, and as bureau chief in Bangkok from August 1984 to July 1988.

From October 1983 to August 1984, Ms. Crossette was deputy foreign editor. In 1982 she was assistant foreign editor. From September 1981 to June 1982 she reported on foreign affairs from Washington. In 1978 she was named assistant news editor. In May 1977 she was named an assistant metropolitan editor with responsibility for the weekly New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester and Connecticut sections which are distributed with the Sunday Times to those regions. She was the first editor of the Westchester Weekly, which was introduced early in 1977.

Ms. Crossette joined The Times in 1973 and was assigned to the foreign desk. Before joining The Times, Ms. Crossette had worked since 1970 for The Birmingham Post in England as a features editor and writer. Her previous experience included working as a copy editor at The Philadelphia Bulletin and as a production editor on The Teacher, a London publication she joined in 1967.

Ms. Crossette is the winner of the 1998 Society of the Silurians 5-Year Achievement Award. She has also won the 1991 George Polk Award for foreign reporting for her coverage of the assassination in India of Rajiv Gandhi. She is the author of "India, Facing The 21st Century," published by Indiana University Press in 1993; "So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas," published by Alfred A. Knopf in May 1995, and "The Great Hill Stations of Asia," published by Westview Press in March 1998.

Born in Philadelphia on July 12, 1939, Ms. Crossette received a B.A. degree from Muhlenberg College in 1963 and an M.A. degree from the University of Colorado in 1965.

She has been a member of the adjunct faculty at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. In 1980 she was awarded a Fulbright teaching fellowship and in 1980 and 1981, she lectured in journalism at the Panjab University in Chandigarh, India and at the Indian Institute for Mass Communications in New Delhi. She was the 1994 Ferris visiting professor on politics and the press at Princeton University.

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http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/ask_reporters/crossette.html