Sylvia has gathered information about her native Miami since she strolled along its streets as a child. A Florida International University graduate in Communications, she worked as a local journalist, winning two Florida Associated Press Awards for Editorial Writing and serving a 2008 fellowship for the Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. She was an educator at HistoryMiami Museum and now teaches for Florida International University and Nova Southeastern University’s lifelong learning programs. She is a Miami-Dade County Heritage Tourism Guide and a member of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Miami. She publishes “Tropical Tracings,” about Florida history, and “Her Steps,” about American women’s history, on Facebook and co-hosts "Roadside Florida," a television program about Florida's historic tourist attractions produced by Miami-Dade College and the Lynn & Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives.