Oliver Roeder

Email | Bluesky

I’m a journalist at the Financial Times, based in New York.

I lead the paper’s US data journalism desk and write for FT Weekend Magazine.

Previously I was a Nieman fellow at Harvard and a senior writer at FiveThirtyEight.

Long pieces

Secrets of a cryptosculptor; notes from underground; redefining the second; a deep-space rescue mission; geometric battles in the mountains; secretive computer horseracing syndicates; elite chess in wartime; a family building the world’s tallest flagpole; legal fights over prediction markets.

Other features

Trading sports; Lunch with Hans Niemann; the problem with polling; crossword gods in Connecticut; lost and afraid in the metaverse; underground sound in a dying planet.

Books

Humans vs machines and the importance of games*; a set of mathematical puzzles.

*New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

Older pieces

Cros sword plagiarism*; the darkest town in America; the long tail of hurricane recovery**; finding God on a game show; playing chess with Magnus Carlsen; millions of Russian troll tweets; the man who solved Jeopardy!; how to win a nuclear standoff; an art cataloguer’s crusade; chess kings and billionaires.

*Data Journalism Awards, Finalist, Investigation of the Year
**Information Is Beautiful Awards, Shortlist, Humanitarian category

New York Times crosswords

A pair of Thursdays.