Lylah M. Alphonse (born 1972) is an American journalist.

Early life

Alphonse was born in

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

, the oldest child of Gerard A. Alphonse, a

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

an electrical engineer, inventor and research scientist, and Tehmina M. Alphonse, a

Parsi The Parsis or Parsees () are a Zoroastrian ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent. They are descended from Persian refugees who migrated to the Indian subcontinent during and after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century, w ...

restaurateur from India. She attended Princeton Day School, graduating in 1990.

Education

A graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

, Alphonse was inducted to the Newhouse School's Alumni Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2025, she was awarded the Princeton Day School Alumni Achievement Award, which honors alumni who have achieved excellence in their chosen field and who have made a commitment to helping others.

Career

In 1994, Alphonse began working as an editor at ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'' in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, where she eventually became a member of the newspaper's

Sunday magazine A Sunday magazine is a publication inserted into a Sunday newspaper. It also has been known as a Sunday supplement (publishing), supplement, Sunday newspaper magazine or Sunday magazine section. Traditionally, the articles in these magazines cover ...

staff. She also wrote frequently for their Travel, Food, National & Foreign News, and Living/Arts sections. She has also been Consulting Editor for the ''Fezana Journal'', Managing Editor at ''Work It, Mom!,'' and Senior Editor and Writer at Yahoo.com, where she covered news, parenting trends, health, women's issues, and politics and interviewed First Lady Michelle Obama, presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett, and others. She became the managing editor for special reports at '' U.S. News & World Report'' in June 2013, and was promoted to managing editor for news a year later. After a brief tenure as Senior Vice President of Laurel Strategies, a strategic communications firm based in Washington, D.C., she rejoined ''The Boston Globe'' as the editor of their Rhode Island bureau in October 2020. In March 2023, ''The Boston Globe'' launched their New Hampshire bureau with Alphonse "editing and shaping Boston Globe New Hampshire as well." Alphonse formerly wrote the blog ''The 36-Hour Day blog'' and ''Write. Edit. Repeat.'', is the author of ''Triumph Over Discrimination: The Life Story of Farhang Mehr'' (), and has contributed articles to ''Our Times'' (5th edition, Bedford Books, 1998) and ''Interactions: A Thematic Reader'' (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1999). She is a frequent guest on WGBH-TV news shows in Boston and offers commentary on ''Rhode Island PBS Weekly'' in Rhode Island.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alphonse, Lylah M. 1972 births Living people 21st-century American biographers People from Princeton, New Jersey S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications alumni Writers of blogs about home and family American women bloggers American bloggers American people of Parsi descent Princeton Day School alumni American women biographers Historians from New York (state) 21st-century American women writers The Boston Globe people