Sofia had a multicultural upbringing in the San Diego/Tijuana border region. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of San Diego, with a B.A. in international relations and minor in Asian studies. After earning her degree, she moved to New York City, where she first worked as a Latin America research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations and then as an analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit, producing economic forecasts for various countries in the region. Sofia served as the 2019 Young Professionals in Foreign Policy Latin America fellow, publishing opinion-editorials on political and economic developments. Throughout her undergraduate studies, Sofia studied abroad in Beijing and Qingdao, China, and participated in the Critical Language Scholarship program in Tainan, Taiwan. She interned for Congressman Scott Peters in his district office and reelection campaign and worked as a research assistant at Justice in Mexico, a think tank dedicated to improving security and the rule of law. For her MPA internship, she worked with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. Sofia speaks Spanish and Chinese, and has an elementary command of Portuguese. She enjoys traveling, learning new languages and gardening. While at Princeton, Sofia is eager to delve into Sino-Latin American relations and foreign aid policy development and implementation. As a Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs fellow, Sofia looks forward to a career as a Foreign Service Officer after graduation.