My first name is spelled phonetically: 'Pra-tik-sha'. The 'i' is short. My last name is roughly pronounced 'Ta-kr' with a hard 't' and a long 'a'.

I have alopecia areata, an autoimmune condition that causes hair loss. I'm generally happy to try to answer questions about it, but I might point you here for more factual information, or here or here for some lovely firsthand accounts of what it's like to grow up with alopecia.

I was previously an undergraduate at MIT, where I worked on a report about diversity in the EECS program.