Ayo Bodunde is a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois Chicago’s College of Nursing and a mental health nurse with 12 years of clinical and leadership experience across adolescent, adult, and pediatric psychiatric settings. She is deeply committed to advancing equitable mental health care. Ayo’s dissertation research explores the experiences of gun violence survivors and their informal caregivers through recovery, with particular attention to access to services. Her work is rooted in storytelling and community-based approaches that amplify the voices of trauma-impacted communities. Ayo is passionate about mental health policy and aims to inform systems-level change that improves access to trauma-informed and community-based mental health resources. She is particularly interested in addressing structural barriers to care for Black communities and other underserved populations.