In a way, it made sense for 26-year-old Adrián Rivera-Reyes — the youngest candidate vying for an at-large seat at City Council — to pull the marble labeled “1” out of Philly’s political sorting hat, an old Horn & Hardart coffee can.

See, according to the Pennsylvania election code, ballot placement is determined at random. But drawing the first number in the lottery for the upcoming primary elections felt a bit less random in the case of Democratic Socialist Rivera-Reyes, who could become the first openly gay council member to serve. He could be the first millennial, or one of the first.

But Rivera-Reyes, a cancer researcher soon to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, could also be the first City Councilmember in the 21st century to bring his STEM background to a government body typically stacked with lawyers and political operatives.

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