Growing up between New Jersey and northern Spain, Sonia spent much of her youth in cross-cultural dialogue between her Ukrainian immigrant and American communities in the States and her extended family in Europe. She comes to Georgetown with a background in educational advocacy and hopes to develop her legal skill set in order to best serve the interests of youth in transition on a global scale.

Sonia graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 2017 with a degree in History. During college, she discovered her passion for local service and human rights by volunteering as a tutor for children at a local homeless shelter. In her last year, she designed an independent study with a group of fellow students focused on housing insecurity in Providence, RI. Working alongside local activists and artists committed to advocating for the needs of the “visibly poor”, she was inspired to complete a year of service with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps upon graduating. Over two years, she worked as a volunteer and caseworker at Advocates for Children of New York, collaborating mostly with Spanish-speaking immigrant families to secure special education services for youth involved in foster care, immigrant students, and unaccompanied minors. This steeled her resolve to work at the global intersections of forced migration, education, and health.

In the fall of 2019, Sonia embarked on a Fulbright scholarship to teach English at Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University in southern Ukraine. While teaching, she organized an HIV awareness campaign, presented a lecture series on special education in the US, and volunteered to organize weekend arts programs for children at a village orphanage near her host city. Following her grant, Sonia completed advanced coursework in development economics through MIT’s MicroMasters program in Data, Economics, and Development Policy, which she hopes to integrate into her legal studies.

At Georgetown, Sonia is excited to pursue her interests in international human rights law, public interest and poverty law, and trauma-informed education and health advocacy. In her free time, she enjoys learning new dumpling recipes, gardening, and spending quality time with friends.