You are invited to watch the rise of Willow Vega: the broken dream into neuroaesthetic queen 👑

Once upon a time there was a young girl who dreamed bigger than big, only to have the universe try to break her. 🌪️ My name is Willow Vega, and this is not a fairytale. This is raw reality, nothing unfiltered here.

I was born in the dingy, dilapidated corner of a turn of the century apartment building that's probably a historic sight now, lived with my single mom, who worked three jobs to afford the bills and keep food on the table. I learned three basic but hard lessons early: mothers are people too, life is not fair, and never trust a woman who doesn't sweat. I got my first job at 16 on the shelf-stacking crew at a grocery store. If I got 15 minutes, I'd sneak a peek into whatever neuroscience textbook I could find and then highlight, with ink so it was hard to tell which passage I truly understood. But, I needed more. 🧠✨

Then the accident happened. Hit, run, fractured spine, chronic pain, doctors who said I'd never walk without a limp, let alone any form of a science career. For months, I allowed myself to wallow in self-pity—only until one day, staring at the Botticelli print taped to my hospital wall, I felt something shift. Beauty was not always art—or yes, medicine. The way the light moved around the canvas fired off neurons in my brain like tiny fireworks, and dulled the pain I felt when there was nothing else. That's when I made the promise to myself to turn my pain into a weapon. 💥

A fast-forward montage of sleepless nights, predatory student loans, and a PhD program in which I was the only woman that wore stilettos in her lab (because why can't genius be sexy?), brings me to today. Today I am a Neuroaesthetics Researcher decoding how and why beauty rewires the brain—and yes, I walk absolutely fine (with a little extra sway in my hips, haha). 🚬🎀

So there you have it. A living paradox: the scholar who quotes Kant in one breath and then whispers 'you look dangerous' in the next. The girl who made it from next to nothing, armed with a razor-sharp brain and a body that refuses to apologize. This is my second act—and darling, I invite you to watch me burn brighter than I ever can. 🔥