Jill Abramson, managing editor for the New York Times and an English lecturer at Yale, will replace Bill Keller as the newspaper’s executive editor this fall, the Times announced Thursday. Abramson will be the first woman to hold the post.

Keller will step down this summer after eight years at the helm of the Times and become a full-time writer for the New York Times Magazine and the paper’s Sunday edition, Business Week reported Thursday. As Abramson assumes the newspaper’s top editorial post, Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet will become the managing editor for news. The appointments take effect Sept. 6.

New York native Abramson joined the Times in 1997 after spending nine years at the Wall Street Journal as a deputy bureau chief and an investigative reporter, the Times reported. She spent several years working as an investigative reporter at the Times, and ascended to the role of Washington editor in 1999. She was named bureau chief in 2000.

While Abramson has served as managing editor for news at the Times since 2003, she temporarily left that position for six months starting last May to focus on improving the Times’ digital operations and business strategy. Abramson worked to integrate the print and online media of the Times, and helped to develop the digital subscriptions the Times launched in late March.

At Yale, Abramson teaches a journalism seminar — the prerequisite for the Yale Journalism Initiative — in the spring term.