BIOGRAPHY

My name is Piper Nelson, and later this year I will be attending Sewanee: The University of the South, studying neuroscience and riding for their D3 equestrian team. Since I was a child, I have always been fascinated with the human brain. As a twelve-year-old, my grandmother’s death was prefaced by years of visits to her nursing home in Canada, where I saw her condition slowly deteriorate due to Alzheimer’s. Forgetting what she ate for breakfast quickly changed into forgetting that her husband had passed, where she was, and eventually forgetting who I was. The images of her condition have never left my brain, inspiring me to study the disease.

Another staple of my childhood memories was my mother's preaching of a healthy gut. From the variety of probiotics my mother made me and my siblings take at the kitchen island every breakfast to the days spent digging in the garden, she was adamant about teaching us that “we are what we eat.” In a world where mental health awareness and the pursuit of mental wellness is increasingly present, I believe that vouching for the idea of the body as an entire ecosystem, as opposed to a multitude of different habitats, is something that needs to be made more prevalent in order to create a community that is healthier both mentally and physically.