I’m a researcher, policy advocate, writer, and crossword constructor in New York City.

I’m trained as a social scientist, focused on migration, political economy, technology, and law. Currently, I develop digital products and policy for refugees and asylum seekers at USCIS, the federal immigration agency. Recently, I was a Director at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, an advocacy non-profit that models itself as a union for asylum seekers. Earlier, at Columbia’s School for International Affairs, I studied climate migration, international human rights law, macroeconomic theory, and world literature. In 2016, I was a founding member of the International Rescue Committee’s research and innovation lab, and brought our work to academic conferences and the U.N.’s annual refugee consultation in Geneva.

My writing spans essays, academic research, policy papers, poems, and literary reviews. My recent work appears in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Drift, Los Angeles Review of Books, Money on the Left, Hyperallergic, 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 reach me at natan.last@columbia.edu.
I’m represented by Kate Garrick at Salky Literary Management.