Community
My community, while changing from city to city, is the diabetic community, and I have been a part of it since my diagnosis at 5 years old. I have taken an active role in it, starting with outreach in primary school, and more recently with a channel on TikTok where I promote diabetes awareness and demonstrate that anything is possible while living with this condition. Through the wider audience I can speak to on TikTok, I work to change people’s perspectives of what it means to be diabetic. We often face judgment of our condition due to stereotypes, and I believe education is the key to tackling this issue. In addition to the ableism diabetics face, there are many systemic issues that still impact us.
Diabetics have historically faced exclusion. From microaggressions, systems designed to disadvantage us like healthcare, to something as routine as getting a pilot’s license, we face barriers in everyday life. Recent advocacy efforts have started to create equitability, such as affordable healthcare, insulin price ceilings, and the 2019 FAA diabetes revision, but these changes are recent, and a lot of work still needs to be done on both large and small scales.
To take steps for progress in my community, I have found avenues for enacting change that I find meaningful and impactful. I have advocated for my disabled peers and myself through the MIT Graduate Student Union and the Disabled@MIT student organization, I am a COVID Safe Campus Ambassador for MIT, and I am a licensed EMT-B volunteering with the MIT Emergency Medical Service.
Activism
Education
I believe that education is one of the purest forms of community leadership, and I’ve been involved in educational outreach my entire life. Starting just after my diagnosis, I quickly became familiar with the science of diabetes, and I wanted to share that with my classmates. I spent several days a year educating my peers about what diabetes was, how it affected my life, and how I was learning to live with it. This type of outreach happened through my years of K-12, and when I moved states to begin my undergrad career, I was faced with finding a new avenue of enacting the same meaningful change I had done at home.
I quickly found a small community of diabetics in the Marching Band at Arizona State. After my first year, I had learned a lot about the safety and precautions I needed to take and be aware of as a diabetic. This experience was new for me, and I felt it was important to share the knowledge I had gained with the incoming freshmen diabetics as well as the bands medical staff. I set up a series of meetings to educate the EMTs about how the marching experience specifically relates to diabetes, and how that differs from textbook diabetic care. When I began my graduate career across the country at MIT, I again faced the challenge of establishing myself with the community there.
While continuing peer education at MIT, I also decided to take a new approach to education and outreach with the start of a social media channel to reach a larger audience and promote diabetes awareness.
Online
The TikTok channel serves as a method to show how I manage my diabetes during activities that are otherwise challenging for diabetics in particular, as well as educating the audience on the basics and more complex innerworkings of Type 1 Diabetes. I talk about various aspects of my life, from research and academics in the space industry to SCUBA diving, piloting aircraft, backpacking, and more.
Disability Rights and Justice
While all disabled people are entitled to the rights and privileges of their able-bodied peers, we simply are not afforded them as constituents in our local, state, and federal governments. Disability justice is the active pursuit of winning rights for an equitable life. I am passionate and highly motivated in this work.
When I started graduate school, I found that there was an effort to organize a graduate student union. As I learned about the conditions my friends had faced, it became clear that the student healthcare plan was lacking, and it disproportionately burdened my disabled peers. I advocated within the unionization effort itself to create a strong platform to reform the health coverage we received. This platform was promoted during our campaign. Working to win the campaign with my fellow grad students was electrifying – the energy and momentum that our organization had made us feel unstoppable. We won our election in the spring of 2022, a feat which gained national attention, and we are now tirelessly working to ensure the healthcare we receive is comprehensive and equitable to individuals with preexisting conditions.
In addition to the graduate student union, I have worked through the Disabled@MIT student organization to become a COVID Safe Campus Ambassador. COVID Safe Campus is a nationwide group of disabled academics and advocates with public health and policy expertise, challenging ableism and fighting for COVID safety in higher education and beyond. As an ambassador I am providing resources to the MIT campus community to promote health and safety so that disabled students are not put at an undue risk of severe complications as a result of infection. Continuing to provide access to masks and PPE for students is an easy and impactful way to help keep my peers safe.
Volunteering
As an EMT, I volunteer with the MIT Emergency Medical Service. MIT EMS is a Massachusetts licensed basic life support (BLS) ambulance serving the MIT, Cambridge, and Boston communities under the authority of the Massachusetts Office of Emergency Medical Services (OEMS). The service is entirely student-run and staffed on a volunteer basis, operating 24/7 throughout the academic year.
On calls, I provide emergency care in the prehospital setting, treating a variety of injuries and illnesses. Beyond providing care and transport for our patients, MIT EMS is active in the MIT community by teaching CPR courses, detailing institute events, and more.
