Sophia Hirakis is a first generation Greek-American. Born in Brooklyn, she’s been back and forth between Greece and America her whole life. She grew up going to Greek school where they emphasized mythology and poetry, but also mathematics and science.
Hirakis started her scientific career in hospitals, in pathology and transplant centers. But after a while, she grew tired of working with bodies and began teaching herself biophysics — basically the modeling of biomolecules like proteins using computers. Her computer models led to multiple discoveries, like how different strains of flesh-eating bacteria bind to a human protein.
Hirakis recently defended her doctoral degree at UC San Diego, and now she's working on starting a nonprofit that uses science to help young refugees stuck in camps in Greece and other parts of the world. She wants to help future scientists whose circumstances have left them in a new country without many prospects. And so her work in science will soon take her back to the shores of Greece, where she feels most at home.
