Sonja was born in the twin island republic of Trinidad and Tobago. She graduated from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine with first class honours in a BSc chemistry and management. For her graduate studies, she moved to Canada where she earned a PhD in chemistry at the University of Alberta in 2013 under the supervision of Steven Bergens. Her research focused on the development of alkaline alcohol fuel-cell catalysts. Sonja joined Caltech in 2014 and worked in the Lewis research group developing catalysts and product analysis methods for light driven and dark electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction. This reaction is important as it is a potential source of carbon neutral fuels and/or commodity chemicals.
Sonja is currently a Lecturer in Chemistry at Princeton University.
