Sora Heo

Sora Heo

United States of America

Born and raised in Chicago, IL, Sora is a current student at the University of California, San Diego, where she studies International Studies-Political Science. As the proud product of immigrants, Sora has been active in immigrant and refugee advocacy and justice causes. In her hometown, Sora served as a citizenship counselor for a local non-profit, providing support throughout the naturalization process for U.S. citizenship. On campus, she serves as executive director of No Lost Generation, her college’s sole refugee outreach and empowerment organization, alongside a dedicated leadership board coordinating academic panels on refugee issues, language exchanges, and volunteering initiatives. She also serves as bystander intervention director of a campus-wide initiative focused on combatting sexual assault on campus. This past summer, she worked on a community action project for the Native Hawaiian Health Board focused on developing engagement initiatives to encourage young native Hawaiians to pursue health careers given Hawaii’s significant healthcare workforce shortage. She has held internships with her local congressman, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and she will be working for the State Department in the upcoming semester. She is proficient in English, Korean, Spanish, and Arabic, particularly which she has developed as a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholar to Meknes, Morocco. By way of her passion for increasing civic engagement, she has staffed multiple progressive campaigns across the nation: Katie Porter and Christina Hale’s congressional campaigns, Andrew Yang for Mayor, and Tricia Shimamura for NYC Council, where has worked on voter outreach, voter protection, and policy research. She has been named an International Leadership Foundation Civic Fellow, Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership (CAPAL) Public Service Scholar, and invited to selective summits like the Harvard Kennedy Public Policy Leadership Conference and Youth Leadership Summit hosted by Asian Americans Advancing Justice for her commitment to public service. In her free time, Sora is an editor for her college’s International Affairs journal and enjoys re-reading favorite books.