I pitched and wrote a freelance piece called "Does politics need gender quotas — for men?" based on an academic paper in a political science journal. The piece explores a thought experiment about what would happen if, instead of mandating a floor for the number of female legislators, we considered quotas to be a ceiling for the number of men. During this process, I learned to quickly assess whether something could be made into an interesting story, as well as how to write a short, compelling pitch. Afterwards, when I was increasingly emailed by PR agencies, I learned even more how not to pitch. This was my first pitched piece for The Atlantic, and it led the site for a few hours after going live.

I pitched and had several other articles accepted using a similar approach, including "The brain on architecture," on how cities can be purposefully designed to induce activity in the brain that mirrors the effects of meditation. This also landed “above the fold” on the homepage shortly after publication, due to the level of traffic and interest they received.