Amanda Luz Henning Santiago is a staff reporter at City & State, where she covers New York politics and policy. She is also the creator and author of City & State’s biweekly Excelsior newsletter, which breaks down the basics of New York city and state politics.

She has also written for HuffPost, Mashable, Business Insider and VinePair.

Born in Manhattan, raised in Brooklyn, Amanda now lives in Queens with her partner and their poorly behaved cat. (She hopes you don’t think it’s weird that she wrote all of this in the third person.)