The Atlantic Names Six Early-Career Journalists to Its First Editorial Fellowship Class Since 2020

The Atlantic named six early-career journalists to its first editorial fellowship class since 2020. The fellows were chosen from a pool of more than 1,300 applicants and will join the newsroom next month. The six fellows are Laney Crawley, Catherine Goodman, Nora Lowe, Jack Rodriquez-Vars, Jacob Smollen, and Katherine Weyback.

During the yearlong program, they will be embedded with reporting and editing teams, sharpen writing and research skills, and deepen their understanding of the industry. Laney Crawley graduated this spring with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She studied journalism, media, and English, served as editor in chief of The Daily Tar Heel, and wrote a senior capstone project on gender, moral judgment, and the French fashion industry during World War II.

She was most recently an editorial intern at Apartment Therapy and previously served as an American Society of Magazine Editors intern at People magazine. She grew up in Rockville, Maryland. Catherine Goodman is a recent graduate of Emory University, where she pursued a double major in English and art history.

She served as managing editor of the Arts & Life section and the Editorial Board of The Emory Wheel, which received a Corbin Gwaltney Award for Best All-Around Student Newspaper from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2024. Her music column, Cat’s Collection, received a regional Mark of Excellence Award.

She previously served as the Arts in Review Bartley Fellow at The Wall Street Journal and grew up in Savannah, Georgia.

Nora Lowe is a recent graduate of Amherst College. A. in English and Environmental Studies and a certificate in Coastal and Marine Sciences. She helped revitalize and lead the college’s science-writing magazine, The Amherst STEM Network, and wrote an honors thesis tracing America’s evolving support for nature based on public-service programs.

She previously interned at Brookhaven National Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and The Examiner. She is from Armonk, New York. Jack Rodriquez-Vars is a recent graduate of Yale University, where he studied religion and English with concentrations in New Testament studies and nonfiction writing.

He has covered homelessness and city politics for The Sacramento Bee, researched felony murder and asylum law for the Investigative Reporting Lab at Yale, and edited campus publications including The New Journal, which was awarded Best Ongoing Student Magazine in the Northeast by the Society of Professional Journalists.

He is from Montclair, New Jersey. Jacob Smollen spent nine months at KCUR, Kansas City’s public radio station, where he produced episodes of the daily news podcast Kansas City Today and the history podcast A People’s History of Kansas City.

He previously wrote for The Provincetown Independent, covering topics from the economics of oyster farms to baseball. A. in International and Public Affairs, where he ran the podcast team and served as city- and state-politics editor for the Brown Daily Herald.

He grew up in Philadelphia and learned audio journalism at WHYY. Katherine Weyback is a recent graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and was valedictorian of her class. While at Columbia, she covered the debate over e-bikes in New York City and the plight of dogsledders losing snow in Alaska.

Before journalism, she worked as a hiking and skiing guide in Montana. She attended the University of Virginia, where her studies focused on the Indian subcontinent. , area.