Part of what makes me good at my job is the fact that I’m an athlete. From a young age, I learned the value of ample practice, hard work, and dogged persistence—and, of course, teamwork.

I also excel at learning about new topics and translating specialists’ jargon into “layperson” language. This comes from reading Dostoevsky alongside Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—something I started doing in college and am still doing today.

Lastly, I love to cook. Specifically, I love trying new combinations of ingredients and tweaking recipes until they’re how I want them. If that doesn’t describe the processes of writing and editing, I don’t know what does.