Welcome!

I’m Sophia, and I love writing about science. So much groundbreaking, fascinating work remains siloed in academia, inaccessible to the people it impacts. I think building stronger connections between researchers and the broader public will have profound benefits for both sides – by incentivizing relevant research, for instance, and by creating more evidence-based public policy. Writing about science in an engaging, understandable way is my small part in trying to build that connection. Plus, it’s just plain fun!

During my PhD in UC Berkeley’s Molecular and Cell Biology program, I studied how cells in a developing organism know how much to grow and divide (and, importantly, when to stop!) Even though a cell can only sense its immediate environment, collectives of tens of thousands of cells can reliably make decisions about growth to build organs that are the right size and shape. How do cells in a growing tissue communicate with each other? What signals do they use?

I believe that, often, we have more power than we realize to change our surroundings for the better, and that local change can have a big impact. With this power comes a responsibility to act: to acknowledge injustice when we encounter it, in our environment or in ourselves, and to fight for structural changes that better serve our whole communities.