Writing Portfolio

Nathalie is an independent journalist and content writer with two decades of experience. Since 2006, her work has been featured in mainstream publications like National Geographic, Outside, AFAR and Refinery29. She has written about travel, science, food, culture and more. She also has experience writing institutional stories for Columbia College Today, her alma mater’s alumni magazine, and SavingPlaces.org, the website of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Nathalie’s work for children includes contributions to TIME for Kids, as well as Cobblestone and Faces magazines. Below is a selection of her published work; additional writing samples are available upon request.

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Travel

  • Embrace Winter Wonders at 6 Family-Friendly Resorts
    Dropping temperatures may have you pining for warmer climes, but if you lean into the magic of winter, you’ll find no shortage of resort destinations where you can enjoy the coziest season as a family.
    (The Expedition, Jan. 11, 2022)
  • Experience the magic of Las Posadas in these 5 U.S. cities
    In Mexico and other parts of Latin America, Christmas celebrations begin not on December 25, but nine days earlier, with Las Posadas—a jubilant reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
    (Travelocity, Nov. 16, 2021)
  • Dig into dinosaur fandom at these 8 destinations
    Few creatures capture the imagination of children and adults alike quite like dinosaurs do. These reptiles roamed North America millions of years ago, and they left behind evidence of their existence in the form of fossils and tracks.
    (Travelocity, Oct. 11, 2021)
  • Citywide hotel boom hits LIC
    Though not traditionally associated with tourism, Long Island City is proving fertile ground for new hotels because of its proximity to Midtown Manhattan.
    (Queens Chronicle, Nov. 2011)

Science

  • Bioluminescent Bays, Caves, and Parks: What Causes the Glow and Where to See It
    Nature has given us some pretty incredible things—and creatures that glow in the night are at the top of the list. Here’s why bioluminescence happens and where you can travel to see it.
    (AFAR, Sept. 7, 2023)
  • Timber salvaged from New York City buildings reveals ancient climate
    Old-growth forests once covered the eastern United States, but they were almost entirely decimated by the early 1900s after centuries of commercial logging. Yet wood from those forests survives, much of it tucked behind the walls of New York City buildings. The tree rings on these timbers are sources of historical climate data, which is why researchers are working to recover them.
    (National Geographic, Oct. 2021)
  • Inside the Movement to Abolish Colonialist Bird Names
    Last year, the American Ornithological Society accepted a proposal to rename a bird linked to a racist figure. And there’s more where that came from.
    (Outside, Feb. 21, 2021)

Food

  • Nick Anderer ’99 Offers Taste of Rome
    A passion for art drove Nick Anderer ’99 to spend his junior year of college in Rome but it was “the rustic food of the people” he discovered there that cemented his ties with the city. The connection has since shaped his career, and today he is executive chef and partner at two restaurants inspired by the Italian capital: Maialino and Marta.
    (Columbia College Today, Spring 2015)
  • On the Day Shift with Pastry Cook Mercedes Vargas ’99
    It’s just before 10 a.m. on a December Monday at The Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park, and pastry cook Mercedes Vargas ’99 is in her work clothes: a white chef jacket embroidered with the hotel name, an apron that shows faint evidence of encounters with chocolate and loose pants with a fine black-and-white checkerboard pattern. Her dark hair is tucked into a pillbox hat.
    (Columbia College Today, Spring 2015)
  • Youngest Son of “The First Family of Fine Dining,” Keeps Making Food Lovers Smile
    It’s lunchtime on a humid summer Tuesday and a suit-and-tied Mauro Maccioni ’95 is seated in a harlequin-patterned chair in the dining room of Osteria del Circo, the Midtown West restaurant inspired by his mother Egidiana’s Tuscan home cooking.
    (Columbia College Today, Summer 2014)
  • Chimney Sweet
    On the ground floor of a Jackson Avenue condominium complex in Long Island City, a centuries-old Hungarian-Transylvanian wedding treat has become a Queens novelty.
    (Edible Queens, Spring 2012)

Profiles

  • The Home Front
    Ai-jen Poo ’96 spent her formative years as a Columbia Lion, but as an advocate for domestic workers she identifies more closely with the tiger, her Chinese zodiac sign. So much, in fact, that she had its likeness tattooed on her right arm when she was in her mid-20s.(Columbia College Today, Fall 2012)
  • A Journalist’s Unmatched Access
    In February 2013, after conducting a widely condemned nuclear weapons test and just days before leader Kim Jong Un infamously welcomed visiting NBA star Dennis Rodman, North Korea launched its first mobile internet network. Though it was only available to foreigners, it was a newsworthy move for a totalitarian regime with a decades-long policy of extreme isolation. As the Korea Bureau chief for the Associated Press, Jean H. Lee reported all of this news from Pyongyang.
    (Columbia College Today, Fall 2021)
  • Sleepy Hollow Mayor Takes Town Beyond the Legend
    It’s tough to introduce yourself as the mayor of Sleepy Hollow without raising some eyebrows. “As in the Headless Horseman?” Indeed, and each fall Ken Wray ’77, GSAPP ’91 presides over the first of the season’s annual hayrides that trace the flight of Ichabod Crane. But the mayor of this small New York village has bigger responsibilities than nurturing an early 19th-century legend.
    (Columbia College Today, Fall 2017)
  • Ashley Walker Green ’05 Has the Moves on the Ice
    Figure skating coach Ashley Walker Green ’05 can pinpoint the exact moment she became captivated by her sport: The year was 1988 and she was watching gold medalist Katerina Witt perform at the Winter Olympics to music from the opera Carmen. “I saw her red Carmen dress and I thought, ‘I want to do that,’” she says.
    (Columbia College Today, Winter 2016-2017)

  • Researching Nuclear Risk
    Social science meets Dungeons & Dragons” is how Jacquelyn Schneider ’05 describes the innovative war game she designed to assess if and how a cyberattack could lead to nuclear war.
    (Columbia College Today, Winter 2019-20)

Culture

  • Moira Demos ’96 Returns to the Scene of the Crime
    Once you’ve created a cultural phenomenon, what do you do for an encore? Moira Demos ’96, SOA’08 and Laura Ricciardi SOA’07, the filmmakers behind the true-crime Netflix docuseries Making a Murderer, took a somewhat meta approach: They returned to Manitowoc County, Wis., to grapple with a world changed by the impassioned response to their work.
    (Columbia College Today, Winter 2019)
  • Latinx Writers Couldn’t Get Hollywood’s Attention. So They Came Up With Another Way
    During last year’s Latinx Heritage Month, Nuyorican actor and filmmaker Dominique Nieves launched a mentorship initiative for up-and-coming Latinx television writers having a harder-than-normal time getting their foot in the door.
    (Refinery29, Sept. 27, 2021)
  • Ambassador of Story
    Through the power of literature, oral storytelling and identity, Cuban American author Meg Medina, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, invites children into the world of books.
    (palabra., Aug. 14, 2023)
  • Anthony “Ace” Patterson ’11 Makes Music on His Own Terms
    In February, just weeks before coronavirus shut down the country, rap artist Anthony “Ace” Patterson ’11 released an EP that was, coincidentally, titled Working From Home. The collection, which speaks to Patterson’s experience juggling corporate and musical careers — he also has a full-time job with YouTube — surpassed one million streams on Spotify.
    (Columbia College Today, Fall 2020)
  • Asher Grodman ’10 is the Ghost with the Most
    Following a string of guest appearances on acclaimed shows such as Law & Order, Succession and Elementary, actor Asher Grodman ’10 landed his breakthrough role in 2020 when he was cast as Trevor Lefkowitz, one of the congenial specters in the hit CBS comedy Ghosts. A prominent member of the main ensemble, Grodman’s character is best known for one thing: his conspicuous lack of pants.
    (Columbia College Today, March 2024)

Baseball

  • Beltrán hears call of the dugout, but which one?
    Carlos Beltrán wants to manage in the Major Leagues, and he’s not being coy about it.
    (MLB.com, Oct. 5, 2019)
  • He braved ocean, sharks to search for Clemente
    Pittsburgh catcher Manny Sanguillén had been in Puerto Rico for several weeks, playing winter ball with the San Juan Senators, a team once managed by Roberto Clemente, a close friend and mentor. When an earthquake ripped through the Nicaraguan capital of Managua on Dec. 23, 1972, Sanguillén had helped Clemente raise money for relief efforts.
    (MLB.com, April 16, 2020)
  • Teammates still awed by Fernandomania
    Four decades have passed since a 20-year-old screwball-throwing left-hander from Etchohuaquila, Mexico, named Fernando Valenzuela captivated the baseball world when he began the 1981 season by winning his first eight starts for the Dodgers. Forty years later, Valenzuela’s otherworldly performance in that stretch — seven complete games, five shutouts, a 0.50 ERA in 72 innings — still inspires awe.
    (MLB.com, April 9, 2021)
  • The Pirates lineup that changed baseball
    Last Sept. 1 marked the 50th anniversary of when Al Oliver took his position at first base for the Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium in 1971. It was just one of 22 games that Oliver, an outfielder by trade, started at first that season. Oliver went 2-for-4 against the Phillies that night, including a first-inning RBI double that put Pittsburgh up, 3-2. The Pirates won, 10-7.
    (MLB.com, Sept. 1, 2021)
  • 60 years ago, the Alous formed the first all-brother outfield
    In a sport that regularly sees decades-old records fall, it may seem like a folly to declare that a particular accomplishment will never be matched. But there’s one feat we can be confident we will never witness again, and it happened 60 years ago, on Sept. 15, 1963, when Felipe, Mateo and Jesús Alou of the San Francisco Giants appeared in what was the first — and still the only — “all-brother” outfield in Major League history.
    (MLB.com, Sept. 15, 2023)

Beauty and Wellness

 

For Kids

  • His Own Style
    Darrius Peace wants clients to feel proud of their locks.
    (TIME for Kids, June 23, 2025)
  • For The Love of Dogs
    A director of operations produces big events.
    (TIME for Kids, April 1, 2025)
  • Cities By Design
    Urban planners shape where people live, work, and play.
    (TIME for Kids, May 28, 2024)
  • Eye of the Storm
    Kevin Doremus is a pilot for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
    (TIME for Kids, April 25, 2023)