Shannon was born in Torrance, California, 3 years after her parents immigrated from Vietnam to the US to flee the war. From an early age, she understood the importance of mental health because she saw the effects of PTSD, generational trauma, and stress on her immediate family members. Growing up as the first person in the family to be born in America, she has always had high expectations from herself, her parents, and her younger sibling and cousins, to be blaze the trail for everybody else. This included ordering food in restaurants for her grandparents at age 6, translating phone calls for her parents at age 8, babysitting her cousins all throughout elementary school, and even navigating high school and college without a blueprint. Her identity as a Vietnamese-American first-generation woman has come with unique experiences and challenges that have led her to become passionate about mental health as a career.

Shannon is now a third-year studying Psychology and Disability Studies at UCLA, and is on track to graduate after the Fall quarter of her senior year. Before the pandemic occurred, she joined a club on campus called Project BRITE, which stands for bruins reforming incarceration through education. As a member, she volunteered at the LA House of Ruth, a women’s shelter aiming to help women who were once in an abusive relationship find social and emotional support to go back to work again. She mentored and spent time with the children at the House and found that her passion lies in serving underrepresented populations find inclusive and affordable mental healthcare. At the beginning of her junior year, she entered the Disabilities Studies minor to advocate for the awareness and abolishment of ableism in both the field of psychology and mental healthcare counseling. She is currently researching the experiences of individuals with developmental disabilities in finding and receiving mental healthcare.

Shannon joined Level Up in the Spring of 2022 as a Direct Support Professional. Her goal is to empower and serve neurodivergent individuals and individuals with disabilities in their day-to-day lives. She plans on educating more people on Critical Disability Studies and abolishing the stigma behind mental illness, neurodiversity, and disability. Shannon also wants to continue her work in advocating for more accessible and higher-quality mental healthcare for marginalized communities. Outside of work and school, Shannon enjoys writing poetry, exploring the outdoors, reading, photography, and watching sitcoms.