A champion for brain injury patients

脑损伤患者的捍卫者

Alissa Totman ’13 was a sophomore when she joined MIT BrainTrust, a student-run organization that connects Institute undergraduates and people with brain injuries for support and socializing. “That group was a great way to learn about the human experience of what people go through when they experience a brain injury,” she says. And it laid the foundation for her life’s work.

2013届校友 Alissa Totman 在大二时加入了 MIT BrainTrust，这是一个由学生运营的组织，旨在将麻省理工学院的本科生与脑损伤患者联系起来，为后者提供支持与社交机会。“那个团体是了解人们在经历脑损伤时所面临的人文体验的绝佳途径，”她说。这为她毕生的事业奠定了基础。

Today, Totman is a physician specializing in brain injury medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where she treats adults with head trauma, stroke, brain tumors, and more. She is also the founder of Synapse, a nonprofit focused on providing support for such individuals. The organization grew out of a group she started with Jaclyn Konopka ’14 during medical school at Stanford, and Totman launched it as a national service organization in 2016, while pursuing her master’s degree in public health at Harvard.

如今，Totman 是匹兹堡大学医学中心的一名脑损伤医学专家，负责治疗患有头部创伤、中风、脑肿瘤等疾病的成年患者。她还是非营利组织 Synapse 的创始人，该组织致力于为这类人群提供支持。该组织源于她与 2014 届校友 Jaclyn Konopka 在斯坦福大学医学院期间共同创立的一个小组；2016 年，在哈佛大学攻读公共卫生硕士学位期间，Totman 将其发展为一个全国性的服务组织。

There are now chapters at 28 universities across the country—and Totman still runs the organization. “There’s a big need for more resources like this,” she says. Read more at www.technologyreview.com/alumni-profiles.

目前，该组织在全国 28 所大学设有分会，且仍由 Totman 负责运营。“社会非常需要更多这样的资源，”她说。欲了解更多信息，请访问 www.technologyreview.com/alumni-profiles。