I walk through the world wearing many hats, carrying names that inform every aspect of my academic journey and personal advocacy: I am a first-generation student, a cancer survivor and patient, a healer, a professional photographer of 17 years, a friend, and most importantly a mother to ten children. Currently at Eastern Washington University, I am pursuing a double major in Psychology alongside Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies. Guided by a commitment to dismantling institutional barriers, I am also completing minors in Africana Studies, Disability Justice, Communications, and Honors. This path follows my time at Spokane Community College (SCC), where I earned my Associate of Arts degree in June 2025—navigating my five quarters there while actively traversing a personal cancer journey that profoundly deepened my understanding of structural exclusion.
My leadership and advocacy work explicitly reflect these intersecting identities, bridging institutional governance with somatic, community-centered care. While at SCC, I served as the sole student advisor on the DEGA (Diversity Equity Global Awareness) committee and was a mentor in the Center for Inclusion and Diversity’s (CID) inaugural mentor/mentee program. I earned both my advanced communications certificate and Peace Studies Certificate. During this time, I also completed my training and became certified as a peer conflict counselor through the Washington Health Care Authority. At EWU, I continue this peer-led work as a Peer Conflict Coach within the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities, bring my credentials as a Certified Peer Counselor to my community. I am preparing to step into a summer internship role at Frontier Behavioral Health’s Jeff Thomas Center. Believing deeply in somatic-based healing as a tool for liberation, I have facilitated interactive somatic release workshops regionally and locally including at the 45th Annual Gender Studies Symposium at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, and for EWU’s Disability Pride Days.
As a McNair Scholar, I am preparing to translate these lived experiences into systemic research under the mentorship of Dr. Parrey, who also serves as my disability studies advisor. Building on my prior critiques of university “documentation traps” and reactive retrofitting, my upcoming summer project is titled, “The Administrative Tax: Mapping Advocacy Fatigue and Chronic Stress in Disabled and Neurodivergent Higher Education Students.” As a neurodivergent scholar and cancer survivor, my primary research question asks: How does the continuous demand for institutional self-advocacy and bureaucratic navigation function as a chronic environmental stressor, and in what ways does this “administrative tax” contribute to academic burnout and psychological distress among disabled and neurodivergent students? Looking ahead, I plan to pursue a MA in Counseling followed by a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology to practice as a licensed therapist.
When I am not studying or working in advocacy spaces, I ground myself by creating art, hiking, writing, and developing my mental health blog, Rooted in the Breaking. I also express my love by cooking and feeding my people. Ultimately, my path is guided by the wisdom of Audre Lorde, who wrote, “Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat… Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged.” For me, going to school to heal others while physically battling the toll my own trauma has inflicted on my physical being has profoundly shaped my perspective. It is through this lived experience that I have woven my intersecting identities together, emerging as the complete, embodied being I am today.
2026 EWU Faculty Research Mentor: Dr. Ryan Parrey
Research Title: Coming Summer 2026!
Abstract: Coming Summer 2026!
