Sophie is an anthropologist of music and popular culture, with a focus on Egypt. After an undergraduate degree in Music and an MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies, she completed her DPhil in Anthropology at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Zuzanna Olszewska and Walter Armbrust. Her thesis, based on 21 months of fieldwork in Cairo including 1 year working as a violinist with various bands, is an ethnography of a style of popular music known as shaʿbi.

Sophie is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at CEDEJ (Centre d’Études et de Documentation Économiques, Juridiques et sociales) in Cairo.