Nymisha Desai
Nymisha Desai is a senior at Pitzer College (in the Claremont Consortium) pursuing a BA in Cognitive Science with an Economics minor. She is interested in the use of technology in psychological treatments, as well as in how healthcare and scientific knowledge production – particularly women’s health – can be shaped by economic and political structures. After graduation, she hopes to get an MPH with an emphasis in health policy and management.
As a SUMR scholar, Desai is involved in two projects. She works with Heather Nuske, developing and testing technology to help support children and youth on the autism spectrum in community settings. She also works with Arnold Rosoff, performing legal research to explore the potential consequences that undoing the Chevron Deference doctrine may have on the US healthcare system and on the government’s role in digital health privacy.
At the Claremont Colleges, Desai has experience working as a research assistant for the Social Cognition Lab, investigating racial biases that medical professionals may hold. Outside of school, she has worked in the field of using virtual reality to retrain the brain’s response to trauma, informing her interest in medtech. With her role in researching and advocating for House Bill 994 in Pennsylvania, a bill that would allow Pennsylvania students to have pregnancy and lactation protections, she has developed a passion for health policy. In her free time, she enjoys journaling, pilates, scrapbooking, trying new foods, and knitting.