Medill junior Sophia Bollag will be the next editor in chief of The Daily Northwestern, the paper’s publisher announced Wednesday.

Bollag, a current managing editor at The Daily, will succeed Weinberg senior Ciara McCarthy. Bollag will hold the position during Spring Quarter and Fall Quarter.

“The Daily could not be in better hands,” McCarthy said. “Sophia has a remarkable breadth of experience at The Daily … I think it will serve her incredibly well.”

Students Publishing Co., The Daily’s parent organization, interviewed Bollag for the position Wednesday. Lecturer Charles Yarnoff, SPC board chairman, said the board was also impressed with Bollag’s diversity of experience at The Daily, and highlighted her work as web editor in Fall Quarter 2014.

“She showed a lot of leadership in regards to the web desk,” he said. “She had made a real priority of recruitment and retention and … we’re fully expecting her to continue that as EIC.”

Yarnoff said Bollag’s goals of having writers establish beats and drawing attention to the work of every desk at the paper stood out to the board.

“We were impressed by what she had to say about showcasing the work of designers, of web staff who may not be showcased in the same way writers are,” he said. “We thought she was a really great candidate for EIC.”

Bollag has worked at The Daily since before she had her first class at Northwestern. She has held various positions on the editorial board — as copy chief, city editor, web editor and managing editor — since Spring Quarter of her freshman year. She is currently an intern for the Medill Justice Project, and was a fellow for the project last summer. Bollag is also an alumna of the Medill-Northwestern Journalism Institute, known as the Medill Cherubs program.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited in my whole life for anything,” she said. “I am really looking forward to leading the paper that I’ve been working with for three years.”

As EIC, Bollag said she hopes to improve the paper’s reporting on all counts, as well as its online presence. She said she is “lucky” to follow in McCarthy’s footsteps.

“I’m inheriting a really talented staff and a really successful publication and I think in large part that’s due to all the EICs who have come before,” she said. “I have a lot to live up to, but I’m really excited for the challenge.”

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