Dr. Sona Hosseini was born in Iran and raised equally in US and Iran. Sona fell in love with astronomy in second-grade elementary school during a day trip to NASA Houston Center. That visit and her parent’s support sparked an interest that remained strong in making her career choices since then. For her Ph.D. project, Sona lived four years at Mt. Hamilton developing a new astronomical instrument, Khayyam, the first field reflective Spatial Heterodyne Spectrometer. In addition to her science projects, Sona is very much involved with professional societies in astronomy, planetary science and opto-mechanical engineering as the chair of the future leaders committee and a member of the International Year of Light UNESCO steering committee, culminating in joining Jet Propulsion Laboratory in July 2015. Sona is currently working on developing her instrument for ISS and CubeSats in space to study comets and planetary atmospheres.