Muyi Xiao is a ChinaFile Senior Fellow. From 2020 to 2025, she worked as a reporter on The New York Times’ Visual Investigations team, where she used emerging techniques to analyze open-source material, such as satellite images, ship and plane tracking data, government documents, and corporate records. At The Times, she covered a wide range of topics regarding China, including tech, geopolitics, and security.
Xiao began her journalism career in 2012 in Beijing. She has worked for Chinese- and English-language publications as a reporter, photojournalist, and videographer. In 2017, she relocated to New York to work as the Visuals Editor for ChinaFile, a position she held until joining The Times in early 2020.
Xiao is a four-time Society of Publishers in Asia Awards winner and a Gerald Loeb Award recipient. She was also part of a team that was named a Pulitzer finalist in 2020. She is consistently at the forefront of media innovation, particularly in the field of multimedia journalism. In 2021, she chaired the World Press Photo Digital Storytelling Contest.
