Sofia Costa Franco

Sofia was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and has always been fascinated with understanding the complex socio-economic intricacies of this expansive city and the region as a whole.

Drawn to the themes of educational inequities, Sofia engaged in clubs such as WeTeach, which provided English lessons and tutoring to students across São Paulo, and was one of the leaders of her school's GirlUp Club, which worked to educate the community on issues of gender inequality specific to the country, as well as take steps to remedy those issues.

Sofia has also widely studied theater as a stage for resistance, with a special focus on political theater during the military dictatorship in Brazil. She has gotten to engage with the work of prominent Brazilian theorists such as Augusto Boal and Paulo Freire, both of whom present theater and education respectively as mediums for social transformation.

Currently, Sofia explores those interests at Yale as head of Teatro de Yale, an organization that aims to amplify Latin-American voices on the stage by producing one Latin-American play each academic year.