Sewell Chan joined The Texas Tribune as editor-in-chief in October 2021. Previously, he was a deputy managing editor and then the editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he oversaw coverage that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2021. Chan worked at The New York Times from 2004 to 2018 as a metro reporter, Washington correspondent, deputy op-ed editor, and international news editor. He began his career as a local reporter at The Washington Post in 2000.
A child of immigrants, Chan was the first in his family to graduate from college. He has a degree in social studies from Harvard University and a master's in political science from Oxford University, where he studied on a British Marshall Scholarship. He serves on the Columbia Journalism Review, Freedom House, and Harvard Magazine boards. Chan is a member of PEN America, the Council on Foreign Relations, and numerous journalism organizations. He was elected to the board of the Pulitzer Prizes in 2022 and joined the national judging panel of the Livingston Awards in 2023.