Mayor Manlapid (they/he) is a Psychology undergraduate student with a passion for promoting emotional vulnerability and mental health awareness. While in high school, they founded a mental health awareness club, and served as an Event Coordinator in their school's Best Buddies chapter. They have spent most of their professional focus on assisting ASD youth thrive in both domestic and academic settings and now work towards destigmatizing mental health on a college and national level. Mayor, at a local level, works alongside UCSC's Student Health Center as a SHOP Talk Mental Health Peer Educator, promoting a preventative approach towards mental health on campus. At a national level, with NAMI Next Gen, they hope they can bring light to intersectionality's role in mental health and give voice to populations of youth who otherwise feel voiceless.
Extremely driven by their genuine love for humanity, Mayor is intent on helping to create a more hospitable world for people to live in. Outside of work, one can find them drawing portraits of their loved ones, folding stray receipts into paper birds, or trying to befriend the local crows.