Dr. Nadia Chaudhri

When Dr. Nadia Chaudhri was diagnosed with metastatic ovarian cancer in June 2020, it was already in the advanced stages. By the following Spring, after undergoing chemotherapy, she was told the cancer was terminal. She bravely shared her journey in palliative care with her Twitter followers — a group that grew to nearly 150,000, from all around the world — advocating for ovarian cancer research, educating them on the disease, as well as letting them in on the realities of living with a terminal diagnosis. 

A neuroscience professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Nadia also used her platform to launch two fundraisers for underrepresented students. First, she brought in over $200,000 in donations to fund their travel to the Research Society on Alcoholism’s annual conference (her area of study was drug and alcohol abuse), and then she raised nearly $650,000 for the Naudia Chaudri Wingspan Award — a Concordia scholarship fund to support the training of neuroscientists from underrepresented backgrounds. She passed away on October 5, 2021, at the age of 43, leaving behind her six-year-old son and her husband — or as Nadia liked to call them, her “sun and moon” — and an unforgettable legacy.