Advocacy

I proudly identify as neurodivergent and disabled. My lived experience with neurodivergence informs my research in the field of computational psychiatry. Thanks to my experiences connecting with other neurodivergent people through the Princeton University Neurodiversity Collective, the Graduate Student Government Mental Health Month Initiative, and Disability Twitter, I found the courage to be an out and a proud part of the disability movement! 

Since 2019 I have lead a research project on effort-based decision making in participants with major depression, I find it fascinating, and important. Despite my passion for computational psychiatry research, it was tremendously difficult to decide to enter the field, and remains challenging to work within it. When I would attend computational psychiatry seminars, and my diagnostic label was named, the research findings felt like an indictment, a premonition of what was to come. Could I bear to know what was in store for me? In these seminars the language used to refer to neurodivergent participants could feel dehumanizing. The frame of psychiatry, and by extension of computational psychiatry, is pathologizing. It seeks to delineate the ways in which neurodivergent people are impaired, deficient, and even when not explicitly stated less than. This frame seemed objective, true, to me. 

The more I opened up about my experiences, and connected with others, I recognized how talented, creative, generous, and wonderful neurodivergent people are. Our diagnostic labels only capture a fraction of who were are as whole people. Often, researchers find what they set out looking for, and so I began to wonder about how the medical model of psychiatric disability was shaping the topics and conclusions of research. What scientific advances await when shifting away from a deficits-based frame and moving, instead, towards strengths-based understanding? When neurodivergence is understood as unique modes of cognition, not lost capacities? When the objective is not to contort neurodivergent people towards neurotypicality, but to help them move towards the best versions of themselves? I dream of contributing towards shifting the research culture in computational psychiatry. I hope my work will benefit from my tenderness to the topic, my emotion, and my lived experiences. Through my work and advocacy I hope to cultivate joy, self-actualization, self-determination, and acceptance for neurodivergent people. 

Workshops & Panels 

Neurodiversity in Academia Wintersession Workshop Organizer (2023)

Co-organized workshop on “Neurodiversity in Academia”, as part of the Princeton University Wintersession, with co-facilitators Dr. Sashank Pisupati, Dr. Laura Murray, and Mira Nencheva. Event covered by The Daily Princetonian. 

Neurodiversity Workshop Facilitator (2022)

Facilitated a discussion-based workshop on “Moving Towards Neurodiversity-Affirming Computational Psychiatry”, as part of the first Computational Psychotherapy Meeting Princeton University, with co-facilitator Dr. Sashank Pisupati. 

Growing Up In Science: Accountability for our anti-racism work in academia panel (2022). Recording. 

Neurodiversity in Academia Panel (2022). Panelist on lived experiences with neurodivergence in academia, Wintersession event organized by Princeton University Neurodiversity Collective.

GRADFUTURES Forum Panel on Mentorship (2021) Panelist on teaching mentorship skills to graduate students and post doctoral fellows at a professional development workshop. 

Host of Mental Effort Workshop Speaker Panel (2021).

Parenting during COVID panel (2020). Co-host of panel at the Graduate Student Government Mental Health Month.

Policy 

Mercer County Committee Member for Democratic Party in New Jersey (2020-2022). Elected official representing Princeton New Jersey’s voting district 7. Serves as polling place challenger and voting on county level initiatives. Working towards better ballots in NJ to combat voter suppression with the Better Ballots Campaign. Lead Princeton University Graduate Student Government to be the first student group to endorse the Resolution for Better Ballots.