Hi! My name is Sonya and I am a volunteer with the MALS Foundation. In college, I became passionate about health equity and advocacy through my experience as someone with multiple chronic illnesses pursuing the STEM field. After experiencing debilitating GI symptoms for over a year, I was diagnosed with MALS in 2024. From there, my passion grew to combine my knowledge of STEM and research to help make clinical research accessible to patients like myself. Outside of volunteering, I work as a neuroscience research fellow on a study looking at fatigue and pain. In the future, I hope to become a Doctor and advocate for chronic illness patients in the medical field!