Sofia Perez: The Short Version
My name is Sofia.
I have always been a girl uncomfortably wedged between cultures, fields, and worlds that were not supposed to mix.
I’ve always assumed it meant I had to pick the culture I belonged to, the field I would build my career upon, and the circle of friends I would attach myself to permanently.
But this weakness, I realized, was no weakness at all.
To live at the intersection is where all the fun happens—the innovation, the new fields, the genius, the revolution.
Sofia: The Long Version
The Scientist & The Artist
I’m a scientist and artist passionate about cross-pollination between fields to generate real impact.
This blog is where the threads of my life meet.
What are the threads of your life?
To fire off a few: I love talking about dirt, women’s health, marine biogeochemistry, biomimicry, and mycelium.
Probably you can also find me bullying people into spending more time in books rather than phones.
I am passionate about cultivating creativity and building a career that fits your strengths and potential rather than the labels the world has given us.
Why did you start this blog?
I’ve spent much of my life trying to reconcile different parts of myself.
The little girl who loved tending gardens and rescuing bugs from swimming pools.
Later, the aspiring scientist fascinated by the chemistry of the Earth.
The writer who found herself in moody Russian novels at 14 and lost typing her next short story at 15.
I was the student who kept wondering why she had to choose just one subject when she loved them all.
For a long time, I thought these identities were contradictions.
Now I think they’re the answer.
The world’s most interesting ideas rarely come from a single field.
They come from the messy collision of many.
That’s where this blog lives: at the intersection of disciplines, ideas, and questions that refuse to stay in neat boxes.
And it’s the corner of the internet where you get to uncover the intersection where you live too!
Sofia & The Intersection Of Cultures
I was born in Virginia, in the US, and moved to Miami, FL when I was 6 months old.
There, Cuban culture surrounded me both in the city, where several generations of Cubans (and all flavors of Latinos, really) live, and at home, where I learned to speak Spanish by becoming immersed in my great-grandmother’s telenovelas each day after school.
Sunshine being my natural habitat and the universe having a dark sense of humor, of course when I was 13, I found out I would be moving to the UK…forever!!!
Well, okay, maybe not forever, but at 13, “forever” is pretty much the same thing as “until you’re 18, when you can do what you want”.
So between 14-18 years old, I lived in a small town called Royal Leamington Spa, in the Midlands of England, braving the gray and rainy British skies each day as I biked to an all-girls school in Warwick.
In the summers and some of my holiday breaks, I would return to Miami to see my father and the rest of my family.
At 18, I deferred my entry to university, and took a gap year in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where I made lots of memories and learned all the paths I didn’t want to take in my life.
Then I started college!
My freshman year, I lived in San Francisco, right off Mission Street, a 20-minute walk away from Pier 39.
Now in my sophomore year, I’m based in Tokyo! Here, I occupy myself with eating onigiri from 7/11, sampling all the konbini ice creams, and letting myself get swept up in adventures.
Next year, I’ll be off to Buenos Aires, Argentina…
Sofia & The Intersection Of Fields
Generally speaking, I’m both an artist and a scientist, but here are some more specifc projects I’m working on right now:
#1: I’m working on destigmatizing period poverty through art and storytelling.
For millions of people, shame, silence, and barriers to basic care still surround menstruation.
I believe stories and art can open conversations that statistics alone cannot.
To address this, I founded Project Hysterica, a nonprofit centered around using art and storytelling to destigmatize period poverty.
So far, we have led workshops in middle and high schools to guide students in voicing their experiences and needs through art.
Additionally, with a group of students in my class at Minerva University, we published a superhero comic book about menstrual health as a super power, Period: An Origin Story.
#2: I’m a student researcher interested in biogeochemistry, biomimicry, and materials science.
I’m a geochemistry major actively pursuing lab opportunities where I can explore questions about the micro and nano level of the world around us hands-on.
I spend a lot of time reading scientific literature about the chemistry of soils, nutrient cycling in the ocean, biomimicry, and the systems that quietly keep ecosystems functioning.
#3: I write both fictional and non-fiction about people I think should be remembered.
I’m writing a historical novel about women bullfighters in 1950s Spain, an attempt to imagine the lives of women who stepped into spaces they were never meant to occupy.
Please get in touch!
Email: greenalsogreen@gmail.com