Soma Golden Behr, a longtime senior editor at The New York Times, died on June 30 in Manhattan. She was 84.

In her work, she expressed a lifetime interest in issues involving inequality, poverty, race and class, which resulted in a number of series for the newspaper, each enlisting squads of reporters, photographers and editors for intensive, sometimes yearlong assignments, several earning Pulitzer Prizes for reporting.

She was the first woman to lead the newspaper’s national desk, and the third on its masthead. In 1977, she was named to the Times editorial board. At the time, she was only women exclusively writing editorials, often on women’s issues, gay rights, and inequality.