Cintya Gajardo Véjar, a Fulbright Scholar from Concepción, Chile, was 25 years old when she was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
As she pursues a Ph.D. in entrepreneurship from the Manning School of Business, Gajardo Véjar has taken it upon herself to help educate cohort peers about invisible disabilities like her own.
“Many of my classmates will become professors, and they’ll have students with ADHD,” she says. “It’s important to share what disabilities are and how they impact peoples’ lives — and how we as professors can help students who may need clear instructions and other considerations.”
Gajardo Véjar earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial design in Chile (“I discovered at an early age that I like to build and create new things”), and for her undergraduate thesis she designed a way to help salmon farms control parasites called “sea lice” without the use of antibiotics. She ended up patenting her idea — a system of buoys that emit electrical pulses to kill the parasites — and launched her own research and development company in 2013 called Oleaje (Spanish for “surf”).
“We wanted to help the salmon industry be more environmentally friendly,” says Gajardo Véjar, who spent four years trying to get the company off the ground, to no avail.
“The pharmaceutical industry is very powerful and they sell huge amounts of these antibiotics,” she says.
Gajardo Véjar’s work, however, drew the attention of President Obama’s Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (YLAI), and in 2016 she was among 250 people chosen for the program. She spent a month in San Diego learning about entrepreneurship as an intern with a company that makes remote undersea vehicles, and she now serves on the YLAI alumni advisory board.
After further developing her interest in entrepreneurship at a business incubator at the University of Pittsburgh, Gajardo Véjar decided to apply for a Fulbright scholarship. She interviewed with several Ph.D. programs and chose UML’s Manning School.
“Speaking with the professors here was completely different from all the other interviews. They weren’t as hierarchical; it was like having a normal one-on-one conversation,” says Gajardo Véjar, who works closely with Assoc. Profs. of Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Michael Ciuchta (her advisor) and Ann Kronrod. “If I’m going to spend four years with them, I prefer to be with people who are kind and also able to share their knowledge.”
Gajardo Véjar has become deeply involved at UML, joining the Office of Multicultural Affairs’ Pair-Up Program, mentoring students in the Business Innovation Living Learning Community, working as a research assistant for HEROES (Harnessing Emerging Research Opportunities to Empower Soldiers) and advocating for students through Disability Services.
She was recognized by the university for her efforts with a Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Service Award.
“It was a nice surprise. I never thought the things I was doing were on that level of importance,” says Gajardo Véjar, who looks forward to continuing to help improve the lives of others through entrepreneurship once she’s completed her Ph.D.
“I used to work with entrepreneurs from native communities in Chile, helping them receive funding and support,” she says. “I noticed that when you give an opportunity to an entrepreneur, that opportunity can spread and have a big impact on communities and families. That’s what motivates me.”
