When Kassandra was born, she was diagnosed with a genetic disorder that showed her resiliency at an early age. Even though she lived a lot of her childhood in the hospital, with constant fractures leading to a numerous number of surgeries, that didn’t stop her from hitting constant milestones within her illness.

Her physicians saw the amount of progress she was making and talked to her about the Make-A-Wish organization, wanting to bring light and hope into her life. She had one wish in mind: to meet the rock band Fall Out Boy.

In August 2008, at 16 years old, that wish came true when Kassandra met Fall Out Boy, and especially the lead singer Patrick Stump, her favorite band member. “Now you have to understand I was a 16-year-old teen. I was like over the moon when that happened.” 

To even further explain her reaction, “I had an online community that I used to go to and we just kind of like gushed over that. I'm pretty sure my parents were sick of me like playing the records over and over.” Even to this day, Fall Out Boy is her favorite band of all time.

From her childhood to adolescence and now to adult life, she has had to persevere through all the bumps in the road, learning how to be hopeful for the future, teaching herself how to be independent, and how to live with a disability that can limit her. Her disability never stopped her; it enabled her to motivate herself and want to advocate for others.

Kassandra went on to earn up to her master’s degree, although facing a tremendous amount of accessibility issues throughout her way in higher education. In 2019, she started her PhD program at Binghamton University where she faced a lot of challenges as a wheelchair user, as well as non-ADA-compliant research labs, leading into COVID-19 which was what led her to complete her master’s degree instead.

“You would think scientists would be innovators and accept someone that is different because it would allow them to think outside of the box, which is what we’re trained in.”

With this being said, Kassandra wants to constantly advocate for disability representation in STEM. Being faced with accessibility challenges from universities to jobs, being able to bring that awareness to not just the STEM field, but also for everyone else who has a disability.

Today, Kassandra is 34 years old and has grown to be an extremely independent person. She lives on her own in New Rochelle, is currently working at an office job, and is still applying for places in the STEM field, because chemistry will always be her passion. In her free time, she loves going out to movie premieres, seeing her family, advocating for Make-A-Wish, and much more.

When Kassandra was asked about Make-A-Wish, the impact it has on children, and the importance of a wish, she said,

“It’s a big emotional uplifting moment that really changes you and I would want them to experience that too. So that they know the type of change they're making. It's good change, it's great change. And you know they're helping so many children to have more of a normal experience outside of hospitals and what not and it's, you know, it's fantastic.”

Kassandra will keep fighting for accessibility, uplifting others, and working towards her goals- carrying her wish that instilled hope, resilience, and identity along the way.