Syosset-raised Sonia Sharma will look for love on next 'Bachelor'

Long Island-raised Sonia Natasha Sharma, described as a 29-year-old project manager in her capsule bio for the new season of ABC's "The Bachelor," premiering Jan. 23, is both an Instagram amateur swimsuit model and, she tells Newsday, a law student at Hofstra University who "took a hiatus" before she will finish her last year.

Born in September 1993, Sharma is one of 30 women competing for a romance with Zach Shallcross, a fan favorite from the recent 19th season of “The Bachelorette.” Shallcross is described by ABC as a 26-year-old tech executive from Anaheim Hills, California.

According to her profile for the dating competition, "Sonia is the life of the party! This outgoing Long Island girl is ready to settle down and put her dating days behind her. After multiple serious relationships, Sonia knows she’s ready for marriage and hopes Zach is her future husband! She says she’s looking for a head-over-heels kind of love and truly believes her soul mate is out there."

There is similar, additional gushing, concluding with, "Hopefully, Zach is ready to be a dog dad!" She also describes herself as being "Elvis-obsessed."

Neither ABC nor the show’s production company, Warner Bros., provided any actual specific background details. According to public records and Sharma's social media, she grew up in Syosset from about 2004 to adulthood, and attended Jericho Senior High School. In May 2016, she received a bachelor's degree from Hofstra University's School of Health Professions and Human Services.

Per her online resume she went on to get a master's degree in Policy and Management from New York University in May 2018, and by June 2020 had completed two years at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University in Hempstead. 

Sharma by that time had spent about five months as a policy research intern at the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute, according to her resume — in a 2015 tweet she wrote, "Just got told that @realDonaldTrump is my spirit animal … gonna take that as a compliment.” Afterward, her resume says, she worked full time as a health administrator at Hauppauge Medical Services from November 2014 to September 2021, evidently while also attending school full time. The following month, she reportedly spent a year as a program evaluator with the Epilepsy Foundation.

Through it all, Sharma posted expertly shot swimsuit photos from ports of call all over the world. She appeared to spend January to March 2018 in Phuket, Thailand; the Maldives; and Thailand's Phi Phi Islands. That May she Instagrammed from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. The following year found her in Saint John's, Antigua and Barbuda; and Castries, Saint Lucia, among other places.

Now living in Manhattan's Gramercy Park neighborhood, she announced her "Bachelor" participation on Instagram Thursday, writing, "There she goes!," followed by a rose emoji. "The Bachelor premieres on January 23 on @bachelorabc," including an emoji for an engagement ring.