I’m the senior design editor of AI initiatives at the New York Times and occasionally contribute humor and cartoons to the New Yorker. My illustrated essay collection, Papel sensible, came out in Spanish with Planeta in 2022. It’s a book about artists, the history of photography, and love.
I design software that uses artificial intelligence, so I find myself wanting to put in writing that I get people’s skepticism about AI (share some of it myself) and consider understanding and accounting for technology’s limitations, ethical quandaries and biases as part of the job. I’m interested in digital literacy for artists and writers, but I don’t push technology on anyone, and have a deep appreciation for contemplation, manual work, and the creative process.
I founded Cita Press, a bilingual publisher of open-access books, and now sit on the board. We’ve received close to a million dollars in funding to make educational content about women in literature and publish bilingual free editions of books from the fifteenth through the present—Saint Teresa of Ávila, Nellie Bly, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, the Colombian journalist Soledad Acosta de Samper (coming 2026). Cita is sponsored by Educopia and funded by Mellon.
From 2022 to 2023 I was a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, where I researched the history of image manipulation. Before the Times: Fulbright scholar, Mozilla consultant, Mellon grantee, designer in advertising, contemporary art museums, and nonprofits. Earlier still: photographer at late-night Erasmus parties in northern Italy, paid in drinks. I am fluent in three languages, you can guess which ones.
Sometimes, I speak at conferences with a deck of up to 114 hand-drawn slides. Recently, I gave a talk at WAN-IFRA, ISOJ, and IRE. Next, I will be speaking at Data Harvest in Belgium, NAHJ in New Orleans, and CVPR in Denver. I like being invited to things and usually say yes.
- A day in the life of a woman in her 30s, for The New Yorker.
- A guide to break up with your phone, for The New Yorker.
- A game to test if you’re smarter than AI, for the Times.
- A history of image manipulation, from darkroom to AI.
- An exploration of a nationalist hoax, for Atlas Obscura.
- An essay about tenderness and attention, for Are.na
- A purchase link to my book (sorry it’s Amazon).
- A guide to making mistakes but not romanticizing failure.
- An Instagram page.
- An Are.na channel about beauty.
- An ex-Twitter link.
SHORT-ISH, THIRD PERSON BIO:
A designer, writer and technologist, Juliana Castro Varón is the senior design editor of AI Initiatives at The New York Times, and a cartoonist for The New Yorker. She’s the founder and now board member of Cita Press, a publisher of dozens of books by women, currently sponsored by Educopia and funded by Mellon. Juliana has received fellowships from Fulbright and Harvard, where she’s an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.
IAPP’s European Congress, Belgium, 2023 (
Female Quotiend’s AI Summit, Webster Hall, 2025