Melena Ryzik is the lead writer of the Carpetbagger blog.

In addition to being a general assignment culture reporter, covering film, music, theater, television, visual art, dance and the occasional Dumpster pool party or eco-art-barge, Ms. Ryzik has chronicled cultural life in New York for the UrbanEye video series and written the UrbanEye e-mail, a daily events guide.

She joined The Times in 2001 writing for metro and investigative news, and got her start on the red carpet beat as a contributing writer for The Times column Boldface Names.

Recent projects have included a broadly shared report on diversity and representation in Hollywood, an oral history of the activist group the Guerrilla Girls, and a series on socially conscious, genre-defying artists.

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She has profiled everyone from Amy Schumer to Ghostface Killah to Pussy Riot.

As the awards season columnist known as the Carpetbagger, she attended the Oscars five times and sent dispatches from film festivals around the world.

A native Russian speaker, she has also served as a national correspondent in San Francisco and the mid-Atlantic states.

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