Please Welcome …

… the new editor of this blog, Annika Mengisen. She comes to Freakonomics from TheStreet.com, where she was small-business editor and staff reporter. She studied journalism and fine arts at Rutgers; her current extracurriculars include boxing, small-scale theater, and serving as a rape-crisis counselor at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Her name alone would seem to be fitting for this job. You may recall that Annika made the list of Freakonomics-approved first names — i.e., high-end but mainly obscure names that, if our theory holds true, will increase in popularity in the U.S. over the coming years.

Alas, her name may not be quite what it appears to be, for she is in fact a native of Switzerland. But we still have high hopes for her.

Our departing editor, meanwhile, Melissa Lafsky, will be heading over to the website of Discover magazine; we thank her for her service and wish her the best.