Eilene Zimmerman is a journalist and a social worker.

For three decades, Eilene has written about business, technology and social issues for a wide range of national magazines and newspapers. She was a columnist for The New York Times for eight years and since 2003 has been a regular contributor to the newspaper. Eilene is also the author of the memoir Smacked: A Story of White-Collar Ambition, Addiction and Tragedy published by Random House in 2020. The story on which her memoir is based, “The Lawyer, The Addict,” was the 60th most-read story in The New York Times newspaper in 2017. That year, Eilene went back to school for a masters degree in social work. In addition to writing, she works as a licensed clinical social worker in San Diego, California.