Humans are complicated.
That’s kind of the point.

We can be brilliant and uncertain. Resilient and exhausted. Ambitious and overwhelmed. We can know better and still not do better. (Psychiatrists included.)

I’m Chika - a resident psychiatrist, speaker, author, poet, wife, mom, and endlessly curious student of human behaviour.

I spend my life exploring why we think, feel, connect, struggle, and become who we are - through neuroscience, storytelling, and, increasingly, the wonderfully messy experiment of my own life.

Welcome to the space between what science can explain and what it simply means to be human. I invite you to get curious with me.

Curiosity has taken me
to some unexpected places.

It took me to medical school, where I graduated valedictorian of my class. To psychiatry, where I’ve had the privilege of studying the mind while sitting across from real people living extraordinarily complex lives. And to a master’s degree in Health Systems Leadership and Innovation, where my questions about people expanded into questions about how we lead, work, and create change together.

It has also taken me well beyond medicine.

I’ve stood on stages around the world talking about resilience, connection, and what our brains can teach us about being better humans. I’ve written and performed poetry, served on boards, shared my story in my memoir, Unlike the Rest, and somehow ended up with a Barbie doll made in my likeness - a sentence I’m still not entirely used to saying.

Along the way, my work has been recognized by TIME Magazine, Maclean’s and Best Health, and my story has been shared across CBC, CTV, the Toronto Star and TODAY.

But for all the titles, stages and milestones, the work I care about most still comes back to people.

What makes us feel safe enough to be ourselves. Why we respond the way we do when things fall apart. How our relationships change us. What motherhood can teach us about control. Why curiosity matters. How we find our way back to each other - and ourselves.

I don’t have all the answers. I’m much more interested in asking better questions.

Awards & Honours

  • Temerity Faculty of Medicine • June 2020

    This distinction is awarded to the graduating medical student who was nominated and elected by the graduating class, on the basis of exemplifying the cohort’s values of leadership, scholarship, compassion and advocacy.

  • TIME Magazine• October 2021

    This distinction is awarded to individuals around the globe who exemplify leadership in the next generation, through combating the world’s largest crises and inspiring the next generation

  • Mattel Canada • August 2021

    This distinction is awarded to one of six women globally who made landmark strides during the COVID-19 pandemic in leadership. This role involved representing Canada on an international stage, through having a one-of-a-kind Barbie doll created in the image of the recipient. 

  • McMaster University• June 2024

    This distinction is awarded to a notable recent alumni from McMaster University who has demonstrated an impact to their community as leaders and change makers.

  • Unlike the Rest: A Doctor’s Story was shortlisted for the 2025 Toronto Book Awards, an annual literary prize celebrating works of fiction, poetry and non-fiction that reflect Toronto’s diversity, creativity and complexity.

*Full list of awards and distinctions available upon request

For the curious humans.