Growing up in both rural and suburban Kansas has shaped my understanding of the deep disparities in healthcare access, particularly for women in rural areas. I was born in New Jersey, but at the age of three, my family moved to Emporia, Kansas. From ages three to eight, Emporia was home, and I remember medical care being available, but limited. When my mom, brother, and I moved to Overland Park, Kansas after leaving a traumatic family situation, I noticed a striking difference in the availability and technology of healthcare. Overland Park, with its specialized facilities, had access to better resources than I’d ever seen in Emporia. It was a stark reminder that healthcare in rural areas lags behind, leaving many people, especially women, without the support they need. This experience sparked my interest in healthcare and fueled my desire to make a meaningful difference for those living in rural communities. I graduated from Olathe North High School in 2023 and decided to pursue a degree in Public Health Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Moving out of Kansas allowed me to broaden my understanding of healthcare issues, equipping me to tackle the challenges I hope to address back home. Attending school in California has given me the opportunity to engage in groundbreaking research for the NASA Artemis mission, which will send the first woman and person of color to the moon. This work emphasizes the importance of innovation and progress—a mindset I hope to bring to rural healthcare. In addition to my academic pursuits, I am a part of the mentorship committee for Bridging the Gap, an organization at UC Irvine that supports first-generation and low-socioeconomic-status high-school students. Leading this committee has allowed me to offer guidance and support as students enter college. This experience has reinforced my commitment to helping underserved populations, as I’ve seen firsthand how a lack of resources can hold people back from reaching their full potential. Whether it's educational opportunities or healthcare access, disparities exist everywhere, and rural communities are often the most underserved. Currently, I am working on starting a campus organization called WIIN (Women Interested in Neurology). Neurology, while not male-dominated, lacks focus in rural areas, where access to neurologists is 80.5% lower than in urban areas. My interest in pursuing a career in neurology aligns with my goal of supporting women in underserved regions. Women in rural areas often face a lack of specialized care, including neurological services, and improving access to these services can have a profound impact on their well-being. Through WIIN, I aim to create a supportive environment for women pursuing neurology and advocate for greater access to specialized care in rural communities. My long-term goal is to return to Kansas and practice medicine in a rural area, particularly focusing on women and children’s health. Rural women face unique challenges, including lack of access to specialized healthcare, stigmas regarding healthcare treatment, and insufficient support systems. I want to use my medical career to bridge these gaps on both local and federal levels, advocating for more comprehensive healthcare services in rural regions. By pursuing a career in medicine, I hope to not only treat patients but also drive systemic changes that make healthcare more accessible, equitable, and compassionate for rural women. This scholarship, honoring Deena Collins' life and legacy, would bring me one step closer to achieving that goal. I am inspired by her resilience and commitment to community, and I want to follow in her footsteps by making a lasting impact on the lives of women in rural areas.

At a time when the world was defined by chaos by the COVID-19 pandemic, I was determined to find a method in which I could help with easing the chaos in my community. I was able to aid in starting FreePPEKC,a student-led organization started in March 2020 dedicated to providing healthcare organizations with medical-grade PPE at no cost. In this position, I was solely responsible for all communications outside of our organization, requiring me to work with healthcare facilities, vendors, and community members. Through my efforts of outreach, not only were we able to provide medical-grade PPE at no cost to large healthcare facilities such as Kaiser Permanente and Children’s Mercy, we were also able to provide full supplies of PPE to 5 rural healthcare facilities in my home state of Kansas. Along with conducting outreach to aid rural communities around me, I have also been passionate about bringing the disparities that individuals in rural and underserved populations face. For 3 years in a row, I was selected to be a lead researcher for Modeling a Protein Story (MAPS) team, a highly selective high school student research team. My role as lead researcher allowed me to conceptualize and conduct 3 different published research projects which are titled Comparing Components of Neuroglobin with Similar Globins (2021), The Interaction of the AAT Protein with Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency and Other Respiratory Disorders (2022), and Multiple Sclerosis and its Inequitable Effect on Marginalized Backgrounds (2023). All of these research projects involved an in-depth analysis on how individuals from rural and underserved populations face discrepancies when it comes to diagnoses and treatment of these ailments, with my research project in 2023 focusing on discrepancies that women of underserved populations face. As I am entering college, I am determined to continue to advocate for rural communities in my home and beyond. I aspire to become the first medical doctor in my family in order to advocate for the needs of women in rural communities on a larger scale. I hope to practice in rural areas in Kansas where I can provide effective care to women in need and I additionally hope to lead legal initiatives to increase the amount of proper infrastructure in rural hospitals. I also hope to create women’s health clinics in India, where I can further advocate for the health of women living in rural areas on an international level. I hope that my efforts will bring awareness to the importance of access to healthcare for every woman.

The person that I am undoubtedly thankful for is my mom. Ever since I was born, she has been my best friend. Anytime I ever feel sad, need advice, or just want to share what happened in my day, she has always been there to listen to me with a smiling face. She is very caring and understanding, and whenever I am in a stressful situation, she helps to take the stress off of my plate. I am also so thankful to my mom for sharing her knowledge with me. She is the one who got me interested in cooking, and through her, I learn new recipes which I will use for my whole life. My mom also has many other qualities which I hope to have. She is confident, strong, helpful, intelligent, a hard worker, and much more. I will always be thankful for my mom as she is my best friend and my favorite person.