Sofia Silva earned her bachelor's degree in Software Engineering from San José State University (SJSU) in May 2024 and is now a first-year master's student in the same field. As a first-generation college student born and raised in San Jose, Sofia’s path is supported by her family's pursuit of the American Dream when her parents immigrated from Jalisco, Mexico, to the U.S. Sofia’s passion for engineering started when she took robotics and computer science electives in high school. However, when she successfully programmed a robot to climb a ramp after repeated failures, it gave her a sense of achievement. This sparked her curiosity about what else she could do and decided to pursue the program and industry for her college education. Sofia’s dedication landed her an internship with NASA Ames Research Center and SJSU’s Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC) as a FireSage intern. She contributed to developing an Arc Geographic Information System(GIS)-based program integrating...