University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown

Heather Muir

Taking a Bite of the Big Apple's Magazine Industry

Heather Muir '06 is the beauty director at Real Simple Magazine at Time Inc. She graduated from Pitt-Johnstown with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication, with a focus on public relations and marketing, and moved to New York City where she landed a job as a beauty editor at Cosmopolitan.

Muir

She's been a regular on Sirius XM's Cosmo Radio and co-authored a beauty book. Advancing through the highly competitive publishing industry, she moved on to Seventeen as beauty editor and then to Allure, the country's leading women's beauty magazine with 7.2 million readers. As the beauty director at Fitnessmagazine, Muir helped women look and feel their best by delivering smart, easy-to-achieve advice on incorporating beauty into every aspect of their active lifestyle.

In addition to keeping tabs on the latest product news and industry trends, Ms. Muir has interviewed celebrities including Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, Heidi Klum, Eva Longoria, and Usher. She served as a beauty source for local television news programs across the country, and her blog posts have been picked up by Yahoo, Yahoo Shine, and New York magazine’s The Cut. She is a go-to authority for newspapers including The New York Times.

As speaker at Pitt-Johnstown's 2012 Commencement, Muir emphasized the importance of stepping out of one's comfort zone and seizing opportunities, telling graduates:

"Remember these five things: 
"Follow what truly interests you. 
"Be kind to people. 
"Play up your best feature.
"Leave your comfort zone. 
"And by all means, as often as possible, make a fool of yourself." 

During her junior year at Pitt-Johnstown, Heather completed an internship at Self magazine. After graduation, she received an email message from a contact she had made at Self magazine, inviting her to interview for a position at Cosmopolitan. She has been working in the industry ever since.

"Pitt-Johnstown provided me with a solid foundation to enter the magazine world,” she said. “Thanks to my innovative communication courses, I built the necessary skill set and confidence to excel as an editor in the beauty field."

Muir currently resides in Marlboro, NY, with her fiancé.