The first twelve years of Sonja’s career was as a K-6 elementary music teacher (for two years) in a two-room school house near Ellensburg, WA and then as a Middle School choral and math teacher at Tolt Middle School in Carnation, WA. While teaching at Tolt, she saw the impact that technology had on student learning and wrote and received a $50,000 NO LIMIT! Grantso that the five math teachers could purchase technology to integrate into their classrooms. As a team, they worked together to improve their instructionand over the next few years, saw drastic improvements in their students’learning.

This inspired her to impact even more students’ lives, so she became a Professional Development Specialist for Lake Washington School District (with over 24,000 students) in Redmond, WA working in both math and technology. In August 2012, Sonja joined Everett Public Schools (with over 19,000 students)as the Instructional Technology Coordinator.

In April of 2015, Sonja joined Microsoft's Worldwide Education Team as Senior Partners-in-Learning Manager, responsible for the Educator audience. She works to develop, scale and run the educator-specific initiatives globally.

Since 2006, Sonja has worked with teachers of all grade levels, all content areas, and with administrators on integrating technology and best practices to develop high-quality instruction. In 2008 and 2009, sheattended the University of Washington in the Danforth Leadership Program andearned her administration credentials along with her Masters of Education inLeadership. In 2010, she became a Microsoft Innovative Educator Master Trainerand began working with NCCE and Microsoft to advance excellence in teaching andlearning through the effective use of technology. In 2013, Sonja was selectedas one of Microsoft’s Expert Educators and participated in the Global Forum inBarcelona.

Sonja has facilitated MIE trainings in all over the U.S. aswell as Global Partners in Learning Institutes with teachers from over 70countries in July 2011 and again in November 2011. She has presented at NCCEconferences and CUE conferences.