I work at the intersection of migration, political economy, technology, and law. Currently, I develop digital products and policy for refugees and asylum seekers at USCIS. Most recently, I was the Director of Development for the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, an advocacy non-profit that models itself like a union for asylum seekers. At Columbia’s School for International Affairs, I studied climate migration, international human rights law, modern macroeconomics, and world literature. In 2016, I was a founding member of the International Rescue Committee’s research and innovation lab.

I’m also a writer. My work — essays, research, policy papers, and poems — appears in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Review of Books, Money on the Left, Narrative, and elsewhere.

Currently, I’m writing a non-fiction book about crossword puzzles for Pantheon, titled The Electric Grid. I regularly contribute crosswords to The New Yorker and The New York Times.

You can contact me at natan.last@columbia.edu.

I’m represented by Kate Garrick at Salky Literary Management.