Sophia Colamarino, Ph.D., is a neuroscientist with more than a decade of involvement in the autism nonprofit research community. Sophia currently works in private family philanthropy, where she serves as the director of science and health for the John and Marcia Goldman Foundation, providing grants in translational research and health services with a special focus on the autism and autoimmune disease spaces.

Sophia is also a consulting professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University Medical School and teaches about autism in the undergraduate Human Biology program. She previously served as vice president of research for Autism Speaks from 2006 to 2011 and as science program director for Cure Autism Now from 2004 to 2006. She currently serves on the First Place^® AZ advisory board.

Sophia received her Ph.D. in neurosciences from the University of California, San Francisco, where she studied brain development with Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Ph.D., followed by research fellowships in human genetics with Andrea Ballabio, M.D. and in adult neural stem cells with Fred H. Gage, Ph.D.