Olga Lucia Torres has been sick her entire life: starting with a pediatric pituitary adenoma, later developing lupus and five other autoimmune diseases, then suffering a devastating brain injury that left her disabled. As a first-generation Latina, she was one of the eight founding attorneys of the Bronx Defenders, and is now a lecturer in the Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University. Olga is also a patient empowerment advocate, and as an Ambassador for the Lupus Foundation of America, she’s their inaugural New York Advocacy Committee Chair. Additionally, she’s the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association, an organization that seeks to increase diversity across all platforms of media. She’s been published in the New York Times, Parents, and multiple other publications about what it’s like to live in New York City as a person with disabilities and with all her medical conditions. She has a TEDx talk, appeared on HLN, partnered with Verizon and other corporations, and spoken at universities and hospitals across the country. Olga’s book is currently being auctioned for sale.
