Sofia’s research is concerned with uncovering poorly understood mechanisms in our brains that underpin how we recognize faces, and in particular, functional differences between how we perceive strangers and people we know well. During her PhD at The Rockefeller University, Sofia discovered two previously unknown regions of the brain specifically involved in recognizing familiar faces.

Now, as a Schmidt Science Fellow Sofia is working with Dr. Elizabeth Buffalo at the University of Washington to understand how our memory works, exploring the connections between how our brains navigate the world and episodic memory.

Episodic memory allows us to recall events from our past, and Sofia hopes to uncover more about how our brain allows us to mentally time travel through our map of memories.