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Sonia Ignatova

Biography

Though Sonia Ignatova grew up as communism's grip on her home country of Bulgaria was ending, she only came to understand its impact on people's lives after she took a course at Middlebury on post-communist transitions. She vowed to "use the lessons of my own experience to support the aspirations of people who have lived or still live under oppressive regimes that rob them of their dignity." She began doing just that on her first job after college, at the Urban Institute. There, she works on a mix of international development projects that include decentralization, education, local governance, water, and sanitation. "One theme runs through them all," she says: "The need for a legal framework to ensure the sustainability of development strategies."

But Sonia knows from experience that more than legal change is needed. She recalls participating in an Urban Institute school-renovation project in Albania where "our development programs were helping to repair not only broken windows and dilapidated walls, but also broken spirits."

At Middlebury, Sonia earned election to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude. Since graduating, she has continued to help others by tutoring immigrant children in Washington, DC and coordinating volunteers for a Nigeria-based NGO, Action Against Poverty International, Inc. German Professor Bettina Matthias of Middlebury, who notes that "decision-making and legal change will require culturally sensitive, globally educated, and tireless, diligent, ethical thinkers," believes Sonia has "great potential" to make a difference.

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