THE ACADEMIC WHO WENT FROM…
Earning four degrees by age 27, to becoming
The Bikini Ph.D.
DOCTOR KIONA’S APPROACH
Stats are meant to tell a story. If that story isn’t yours, perhaps you’re not the one who should be telling it.
Doctor Kiona was pursuing her first Ph.D. when she observed a White professor receive a $2M government grant to study health habits of Latin Americans. The caveat? The professor hired a Venezuelan Spanish translator for a Mexican Indigenous group speaking a completely different dialect (of their second language).
When Kiona, a fluent Spanish speaker, collected data for the study, she realized that without culturally-relevant translations, participants might not understand the questions being asked. But to the professor, Spanish was Spanish—ignoring or unaware of the nuance between culture and dialect. When the study results were published, Kiona knew the integrity of the data was inconclusive.
Learning from the experience, Doctor Kiona entered her career as a statistician with the following promise: She would only interpret her own cultural data. Today, she speaks on disaggregated data on Asian Americans for prominent institutions like the Smithsonian Institute and interprets Asian American statistics.
All other cultural identities? She's happy to sit back and learn.
Interpreting race-based data down to the molecular level.
Here’s something you already know: Food is highly political, influenced by food deserts, green spaces, and access to quality groceries. In her studies on epigenetics and the microbiome, Doctor Kiona collected data to update standard birth charts (based on White babies) to race-based birth charts, exposing growth pattern differences across races. She also pinpointed the bacterias contributing to fatty liver disease in Mexican freshmen and developed an algorithm to determine if breastfeeding prolongs survival.
EXPLORE THE RESEARCH
What does food have to do with race?
Why are fit, healthy people having heart attacks?
When a group of community firefighters started dying in their early forties and fifties due to heart attacks, Doctor Kiona researched their lifestyle. The findings? Their diets and exercise habits were actually quite healthy. The true culprit was the firefighters’ circadian rhythms. Working 24 hours a day, three days a week, with no consistent sleep schedule caused fire alarms to literally jump start their hearts.
Every rejection is redirection: From grad student to Bikini PhD.
Read KIONA’S Story
Following the 2022 Stop Asian Hate Movement, in which Doctor Kiona participated as a data activist, she was greatly impacted by the widespread disinformation and misinterpretation Asian American history and statistics. She starts writing her first textbook, the first Asian American history book for middle school readers.
2011
Kiona applies to and is accepted to grad school.
2012–2021
Doctor Kiona teaches multiple undergraduate classes at the University of Texas at Austin, serves as an adjunct professor at the Cox School of Business, and guest lectures at Ohio State University and others.
2013
Doctor Kiona launches How Not to Travel Like a Basic Bitch, making travel and education accessible to all—when neither were once accessible to her. She overnight amasses a cult-like following with 30,000+ weekly readers.
2014
Facing scrutiny in the laboratory over her fashion choices, Doctor Kiona starts posting pictures of herself in bikinis on social media. She reminded readers, “You can still be a doctor and be in a bikini at the same time," breaking down stereotypes of professionalism against women in science. She amasses a 100,000+ following who celebrate her educational bikini pictures every time she gains another 1,000 followers.
2016
A tenured professor blocks Kiona from defending her dissertation in Nutritional Sciences specializing in Epidemiology, purposely cancelling 12 meetings while blaming Kiona for a “lack of progress.” In reality, she wanted to keep Kiona, the highest-producing lab member, for an additional three years. The professor is fired from the university and Kiona vows to warn students of the dangers of academia and to never have another superior in charge of her career.
2017
Kiona witnesses a superior receive a $2M grant studying health profiles of Mexican students, but fails to hire a regional-specific translator or adapt questionnaires to be culturally specific.
2018
Unable to defend her first dissertation, Kiona receives a second masters degree. She acquired her second masters in Statistics and Data Science in her “free” time while working multiple jobs. She then completes her PHD program in just 1.5 years.
2018
Discouraged by academia—and how oppressive and limiting it is for students from international backgrounds—Doctor Kiona launches her first educational travel tour where she organizes local professors to teach on their own, relevant research and topics. The first tour sells out in just 24 hours.
2020
The Smithsonian, Anhauser-Busch, Shipt, World Travel Market, and others hire Doctor Kiona as a DEI expert and Asian American statistics consultant.
2023
Doctor Kiona officially launches her decentralized university, Reroot. The result? Academia turns global while students learn directly from those impacted by cultural issues. Today, Kiona employs 100+ academic experts throughout the globe. She runs her university by the beach and in airport lounges.
2023
APPLY TO GRAD SCHOOL
Making grad school accessible: Learn How Not to Grad School
As the first person in her family to get a Ph.D. and the only person who wasn’t a White or international student in her program, Doctor Kiona once thought grad school was out of reach. When she found out she could get a Ph.D. for zero dollars, she pursued a career in academia. That career was filled with bumps and bruises, and now, she’s compiled all her knowledge—along with that of 50 academic experts—to help you do grad school the right way.
Learn how to go to grad school for free, not write a trauma-porn essay, present empowerment vs. victimization, apply for scholarships, and protect your mental health because your life depends on it.
50
10,000+
Students passed through the program to date
Professors compiling their teachings
$10,000
Scholarships given out.
$5
The cost to learn how to grad school (and your daily latte!).