Andre Green

Andre is from the horse capital of the world, Kentucky! He is currently a senior obtaining his Bachelors of Social Work at Western Kentucky University. He lives in Bowling Green, but woefully does not own a Corvette. Other than being a full-time student, he is currently interning at a non-profit where he assists with funding. As a social work major, advocacy and advancing human rights is near and dear to his heart. Expanding knowledge and access to resources has always been a passion of Andre’s. When he is not swimming in the endless sea of academia, Andre enjoys yoga (he can do a mean down dog pose), meditation practice, hiking, cooking, constantly making playlists, and being a "not-so-undercover" nerd. Andre likes anything from Star Wars, to Avatar, and everything in between.

Andre was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at the age of 22. He has gone through many trials and tribulations throughout his journey with IBD, but has learned and grown so much as a person. Validating your own experiences has been an integral lesson that has helped him along this IBD rollercoaster. Andre is privileged enough to have access to quality healthcare as well as a great support system. He hopes to use all of his knowledge and experiences as someone with IBD to help his future clients. After getting his Masters of Social Work degree, Andre aspires to work within communities and policy, eventually working to obtain his LCSW and practice therapy. Incorporating IBD awareness and advocacy in his professional work is also something Andre would like to accomplish. Until then, stay tuned!

Savannah Snyder

Savannah lives near Toronto, Ontario and is a recent college graduate who earned a degree in Management and Organizational Studies at the University of Western Ontario. Savannah’s world changed upon entering her fourth year of university, when she was hospitalized and subsequently diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at just 21 years old. Savannah became all too familiar with the pressures of balancing day-to-day life and the pressures of school along with her health, and her diagnosis resulted in her withdrawing from school that year. Consequently, Savannah has dedicated the past 2 years of her life to learning how to balance IBD, from food intolerances and eating restrictions to receiving an intestine resection surgery to remove scar tissue. Savannah started an instagram, SavsHealingKitchen, to share tolerance friendly recipes as well as connect with other individuals with IBD. Savannah’s experience with quickly losing the notion of being a healthy, young adult, has caused her to focus on spreading awareness about IBD and making sure others never feel alone. Savannah is excited to bring IBD awareness to those around her and is looking forward to help others navigate the unpredictable world with a chronic illness as a Crohn’s and Colitis Young Adult Network Fellow. 

Kumudini Ethiraj

Kumudini is from Bangalore, India. She is a Commerce graduate and a Company Secretary by profession working in a corporate. She has been battling with Crohn’s since childhood, for around 15+ years now.  Although she started experiencing  the symptoms at a very young age, she was actually diagnosed when she reached her 20s. It took almost 7 years to start a proper treatment. Since then it's been a roller coaster ride with periods of flares and remission.  

Through this fellowship, she wishes to change the scenario here in her country by educating more people about this condition and making India IBD aware as advocacy in India hasn't picked up yet. People shy away from disclosing their ailment in fear of being judged and doctors themselves are not much aware of the available treatments. Apart from that, as a passionate Volunteer, She has been associated with different NGOs from quite some years now and enjoys working with groups that are contributing to bring in equity and diversity for the good of the society in which we live.

Some of the work which added a feather to her cap includes organizing India’s largest fashion show for differently-abled Individuals, advocating for creating awareness about Child Adoption in India, teaching English at regional schools, participating in tree plantation drives etc. She is also associated with the Organization for Rare Diseases India (ORDI) as a Patient Advocate for IBD and is working to bring awareness about this disease in her country and creating an inclusive environment for her fraternity. She was a fellow cohort of two fellowships prior to this. One was conducted by Young Leaders for Active Citizenship where she worked on a live project in policy making for a sitting Member of Parliament, and the other one- Lead Like a Girl, was conducted by Shenomics, an organization empowering young women leaders. 

David Gardinier

David currently resides in sunny Florida, where he is finishing up his degree in Dietetics at the University of Florida. The state he lives in might be flat, but David’s journey has been filled with ups and downs. He was first diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in 2016, and quickly went into remission with medication. After his first successful semester of college, David decided life wasn’t exciting enough, and decided to go off his medication in favor of a diet. This little mistake blossomed into a flare, and eventually resulted in him being able to check ileostomy, pancreatitis, abscess, small bowel obstruction, and proctitis off his Crohn's bingo sheet. All in two years! By the grace of God, and the help of his doctors and medication, David has been in remission since early 2019.

The next step in his journey is to enter a dietetic internship, where he will complete the 1200 hours of supervised practice necessary to sit at the exam to become a registered dietitian. David’s interests lie in how nutrition can impact the quality of life and disease progression of people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. His long term goal is to open a private practice specializing in IBD, but for now he is content writing about nutrition and IBD on the r/IBDDiet subreddit. If you have an idea of what he should name his practice he would love to know, as it has been stumping him for a while now. When he isn’t nerding out over nutrition, David enjoys hiking, ultimate frisbee, football, and video games. Most Sundays, the pain of rooting for the Los Angeles Chargers makes him wonder if being a fan of the team counts as a second chronic disease.

As a CCYAN fellow, David hopes to raise awareness of how nutrition can affect both disease progression and quality of life in people with IBD. He feels passionately that for a disease involving the major organ used to absorb food, we don’t talk about nutrition nearly enough. To change this, he will focus on sharing the latest evidence based nutrition research and empowering you with the tools needed for nutrition success.

Vasiliki-Rafaela Vakouftsi

Vasiliki-Rafaela Vakouftsi lives in Thessaloniki, Greece. She is a musician and has a conservatory degree. She is now studying at the School of Music Studies at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki. She was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in early adulthood. She also has some other chronic conditions, such as psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and adrenal insufficiency. Her journey wasn’t easy. She has tried various medications and went through many complications, but she is here, and, finally, in remission after many years.

She experiences the impact of IBD in her daily life and understands what it means to live with a chronic condition. She is a passionate patient advocate and an active member of the Greek IBD Society. She writes a lot of articles about IBD and has also written a book about the life of a Crohn’s disease patient. Music is one of her passions and advocacy is the other. She hopes to motivate other patients with IBD to speak about their condition, because together we can make IBD visible! She is excited to be a CCYAN fellow!

Saravanan Nagappan

Saravanan Nagappan (Sara) lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is working as an assistant audit manager and he is a certified member in the Chartered Accountant of Malaysia. Sara loves hiking, spelunking, traveling and he is also very enthusiastic about knowing the latest technology development. His interest in technology brings him into the XR industry and he has been involved in XR business. Sara was officially diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 2012 after suffering from pain and flares for more than four years. He has been living with Crohn’s disease for 12 years now and at the same time, it has not been an easy journey as an Ostomate as well. Sara is dedicated to sharing his story of struggles, perseverance, and hope to other IBD patients.

Sara is one of the co-founders of “Crohn’s and Colitis Society of Malaysia” (CCAM), a support group that works to bring awareness about this disease to Malaysians. He also actively volunteers with Malaysian Ostomy Association (MOSA) and Colorectal Cancer Survivorship Society Malaysia (CORUM).

He is inspired to bring more awareness to IBD patients’ struggles through his support group and volunteer works. He is excited to be a part of the CCYAN team and hopes to be able to work with other IBD patients from all over the world. He aims to bring more support and raise awareness about IBD to people around him by advocating and sharing his experiences with other fellows.

Nathalie Garcia

Nathalie Garcia is a first-generation student at Stanford University in her first year. Before this, she underwent many difficulties in regards to her and her family’s health. After her brother almost lost his life due to ulcerative colitis following a misdiagnosis from lack of medical testing, she grew passionate about patient advocacy from realizing the flaws in accessing specialized medical care. A few years later, Nathalie began experiencing signs of IBD when she was just 15 years old. Because of her family history, Nathalie was tested early for IBD only for the results to come out as inconclusive. At 16, she collapsed during her high school cross-country race and was finally diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. As her Crohn’s symptoms progressed and multiple medications did not work for her, she became overwhelmed with how her disability was limiting her life. It wasn’t until she became a volunteer at her local hospital, she realized her experiences allowed her to understand other people’s adversities through a unique perspective.

Nathalie, now 18, hopes to pursue a career in healthcare to ensure other patients with invisible disabilities receive the proper medical treatment they deserve. Aside from her ambitions, although she can’t run anymore, she loves to do yoga and paint whenever she has the time. As a Crohn’s and Colitis Young Adults Network Fellow, she is enthusiastic to bring greater awareness to IBD and help others learn how to advocate for themselves. Along the way, she also hopes she can help others find joy during remission and overcome their anxieties about living with IBD.

Nandani Bhanot

Nandani is a multicultural person, having grown up in diverse international environments. She was diagnosed with UC after coming to India for her undergraduate degree. Going through the rollercoaster ride of having IBD in India, she developed an empathy for those not as privileged as her, as well as an increased understanding of the current public health and education limitations in India. Her experiences of being a patient at government hospitals ignited her passion for the development sector. In 2018, despite not being in remission, she committed to a rural India fellowship where she managed to live in a tribal village for a year to learn about development challenges at the grass root, managing her flare-ups during these very difficult circumstances with little support. Luckily, she has been in remission through immunosuppressants since early 2019. 

The lack of awareness, advocacy and knowledge on chronic illnesses along with the taboo attached to them in India has made this journey very challenging. People with these disabilities not only face the consequences of the disease, but also the general apathy from surrounding people. She believes raising awareness might provide better support systems. She is excited to have a unique platform like CCYAN to write about her experiences living with IBD, help others feel seen and heard, learn more from experts, and start her journey as a chronic illness advocate! 

Jennifer Lee

Jennifer Lee is an undergraduate student at Princeton University, pursuing a degree in the School for Public and International Affairs. Hailing from northern New Jersey, Jennifer has a vested interest in law and public service as a future career. In the meantime, she'll settle for being an avid bubble tea enthusiast, an amateur painter, and most recently, an advocate for IBD! Jennifer was diagnosed with Crohn's disease in June 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Although she has had her fair share of emergency room expeditions and colonoscopies, her IBD diagnosis taught her that the most important thing each day is to be content in the present moment.

On campus, albeit virtually in 2020, Jennifer is a project manager with Princeton University Nonprofit Consulting, working with Aunt Flow to promote menstrual hygiene accessibility on college campuses. A proud Korean-American, Jennifer is also passionate about exploring the intersection between service and culture, both as the incoming co-chair of the Pace Council for Civic Values and a board member of the Asian American Students Association. This fall, she joined the Disability Collective (DisCo) and found a supportive network regarding her diagnosis. Jennifer is ecstatic to be a 2021 CCYAN Fellow and hopes that sharing her IBD journey can help other young adults!