Sabrina Imbler

2 weeks ago | defector.com | Sabrina Imbler

When Mary Giovagnoli was in law school, she spent a year working as a junior public defender representing people accused of misdemeanors. "I really liked the work, but it was emotionally devastating, because you got very wrapped up in your clients' cases," Giovagnoli said. She felt that only the prosecutors held real power; Giovagnoli would make her clients' cases, but the final decision was out of her hands. Then something clicked.

2 weeks ago | defector.com | Sabrina Imbler

Laura Mata López was born and raised in a low-income community in San José, Costa Rica. Some of her earliest memories were of the impact poverty and a lack of support for mental health had on her neighbors. Mata López's mother and grandmother had migrated to Costa Rica from Colombia during the Colombian civil war, severing them from their roots and family. For a period of time, Mata López's family was undocumented in Costa Rica, although their route to citizenship there was fairly easy.

2 weeks ago | defector.com | Sabrina Imbler

Joy Binion learned that she had lost her job as a social science analyst at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, on April 1. So she posted on Facebook that she had been affected by a reduction in force, or RIF. A month later in a conversation with a friend, Binion mentioned the fact that she had lost her job. He reacted in total shock. "I thought that was an April Fool's joke," Binion's friend said of her Facebook post.

3 weeks ago | defector.com | Sabrina Imbler

In a third-grade classroom exercise, Patrick Kelly wrote that he wanted to become a scientist when he grew up. With that interest came an attention to the people that science can help. "I've just always been super-curious about human nature, our interactions with one another," he said. In college, Kelly pivoted to public health, which is no doubt a science deeply interested in the interactions people have with one another.

3 weeks ago | defector.com | Sabrina Imbler

Mamta Patel Nagaraja grew up in a small town in West Texas, where her parents ran a motel. Nagaraja and her older sister were both fascinated by space, which felt like a portal into the unknown. "There wasn't much grass, but I would lie down on the concrete and just look up and wonder," she said.