Sylvia M. Garrett lives with her mother in Los Angeles, where she attends and all-girls high school. When Sylvia was younger, her mother always encouraged her to ask questions and find the answers herself. That childhood curiosity inspired Sylvia to always seek knowledge and solutions, as she believes girls can be curious and capable explorers and experimenters, while being quintessentially female. Growing up, Sylvia also had a red-headed accomplice, named Gracie, who was (and forever will be) her tree-climbing friend.
Highly interested in STEM and involved in a variety of volunteer activities, Sylvia aspires to be a neurosurgeon and innovator. She was a 2018 recipient of the Dr. James Fann Fellowship in Cardiothorasic Surgery Education at Stanford School of Medicine. Sylvia also holds United States Patent No. 9,517,948 for a Portable Personal Water Filtration System that she invented. Sylvia has been a project volunteer for both the Sacred Valley Potable Water Service Project in Pilkobamba, Peru and the Njoro Village Service Immersion Project in Tanzania, Africa.