SOFIA

DEL SOL

I’ve always been curious about the world - how things sound, move, and fit together. Whether I’m reading, creating, running, playing music, defending the goal, or skiing down a mountain, I throw myself into what I love. I’m happiest when I’m creating, learning, helping others or working on something that pushes me to grow.

Growing up between Spain, New York City, Ukraine and the Berkshires has made me a global citizen and shown me that the world is a big, connected place - full of perspectives, stories, and ways to grow. I’ve found my rhythm - sometimes calm like the mountains, sometimes busy like the city. It’s taught me to be open, creative, and grounded wherever I go. My roots connect me to generations of artists, educators, historians, philanthropists, and strong woman leaders who believed in using creativity, curiosity, hard work and collaboration to make the world better. I carry that same independent and determined spirit with me - staying kind, curious, bright, and always ready for what’s next.

I grew up hearing our family stories and visiting our foundation in Madrid, where the past felt close and I keep learning more each year. My family is full of adventurers, teachers, researchers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, philanthropists, and historians who made an impact on the world. They mapped the Spanish language and its dialects, built schools that welcomed new ideas, and preserved history so we can keep learning from it. They were changemakers who raised strong, innovative, independent women. Today that legacy lives in my grandmother, my great-aunts, my mother — and in me.

A Bit of Lineage

ME

CATALÁN WOMEN

A Spanish Hispanist, literary critic, researcher, educator and advocate for women's rights. One of the first women to attend college, first Spanish woman to earn a degree in Philosophy and Letters and first to earn her doctorate. She was innovative, rebellious of the status quo, and made the changes she saw the world needed. She was a principal architect of modern scholarship on El Cid and a builder of the Romancero archive alongside her Ramón Menéndez Pidal. She pioneered education for women in Spain and around the world.

María Goyri: My great-great-great Grandmother

Jimena Menéndez Pidal: My great-great Grandmother

A scholar, educator, pedagogue and co-founder of the Colegio Estudio, an innovative children’s school in Madrid, Spain.

A Spanish philologist, dialectologist, folklorist, and professor of Spanish Philology, expert in medieval history and the Hispanic ballad tradition, who expanded the Archivo del Romancero and fostered cross-border scholarly exchange.

Diego Catalán: My Great Grandfather

We have a crater on the dark side of the moon named after my great-great grandfather! Crater Catalán

FUN FACT

Miguel Catalán Sañudo: My great-great Grandfather

Spanish physicist and pioneer of modern spectroscopy, noted for identifying regular “multiplet” groupings in atomic spectra. A leader in Spanish science with global collaborations, he is commemorated by the lunar crater Catalán.

Ramón Menéndez Pidal: My great-great-great Grandfather

A renowned philologist and historian who mapped the history and dialects of Spanish, charting the language’s evolution. He twice led the Real Academia Española, founded the Revista de Filología Española, edited cornerstone medieval texts, and with María Goyri modernized the Romancero by collecting ballads, unifying them in the Archivo del Romancero, and comparing versions across Iberia and the Sephardic diaspora. He made El Cid a central focus and professionalized research on Spanish folklore and folk poetry. Nominated for the Nobel Prize across 26 years, he helped shape modern Hispanism and influenced scholarship across Spain, Europe, and the Americas.

FUN FACT

The tower in this painting used to be my grandmother’s room. Today that house is the Foundation of Ramón Menéndez Pidal. We go back every year, and my great-aunt Sara Catalán helps run it, preserving the archives and bringing the history to life with new programs and education.