Before joining DNAinfo, Sonja ran a hyperlocal news site in the working-class suburbs of Oakland, Calif., where she produced investigative series while hanging out with ex-gang-banger urban farmers and pregnant 14-year-olds.
Sonja got her start in journalism covering crime for U.C. Berkeley’s award-winning Daily Californian. She moved to New York City after graduating with a degree in History and Spanish Literature in 2008, reporting Brooklyn for the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and Queens for the Daily News. Her stories of kibbitzing with Yiddish-speaking hipsters, poring over Nigerian gossip rags in Queens, braving toilets at JFK’s Central Taxi Hold and downing shots of 192-proof liquor with Lubavitchers in Brooklyn have also appeared in the New York Times, the New York Post, the Huffington Post and Mother Jones magazine.
Sonja lives with her husband, a mad scientist and entrepreneur, in Crown Heights.
Fun Fact: While living in a commune in Berkeley, Sonja rocked coveralls and used a diamond-tipped buzzsaw while making experimental pavement for the California Transportation Authority.
