Sanya Tinaikar’s passions lie at the crossroads of the written word, public health, and civic engagement. During high school, Sanya founded her school’s first print newspaper, The Summit, which greatly spurred her interests in writing, critical dialogue, and leadership. She also served as an Executive Editor for Polyphony Lit, an international literary magazine for high school writers. Through these initiatives and discovering the wonderful art of storytelling, she was able to connect with writers all over the world. To quote one of her favorite authors, Jhumpa Lahiri, “That’s what books are for…to travel without moving an inch.” As such, Sanya believes that literature and writing can diversify our perspectives, uplift the stories of the unheard, and remind us of the universality of the human experience.
Moreover, Sanya is also deeply drawn to health policy and clinical medicine, and how these fields can be harnessed to address healthcare disparities in marginalized communities. Sanya believes that while writing and medicine may seem like opposing fields, they both serve as mechanisms of healing. At a moment when health inequities fraught within society’s fabric are more apparent than ever, she hopes to explore how writing can humanize medicine and amplify the concerns of underserved communities to further facilitate equal access to healthcare.
A prospective Health and Societies major with a focus on pre-health studies, Sanya serves as a General Assignments Editor for The Daily Pennsylvanian and is part of the Penn Undergraduate Biotechnology Society’s Research Committee. She also participated in the Collegium Institute’s Spring 2024 Medical Humanities Fellowship, where she was able to craft her philosophies on patient-physician relationships and palliative care.
Apart from academics, Sanya is an avid cartoonist. She has found that tensions between conformity and individuality are often found at institutions like Penn, and confronting stress and failure by twisting them into humorous illustrations allows her to seek joy in life and learning. Heavily influenced by cartoonists Liana Finck, Zoe Si, and Roz Chast, among others, she is a strong believer that incongruous as it may seem, cartoons can serve as agents of change.
Sanya looks forward to edifying her Penn career through SNF Paideia and kindling conversations with people who are unapologetically passionate about what they do. As a Fellow, she hopes to spark meaningful dialogue, embrace togetherness, and continuously keep an open mind as she uncovers facets of herself throughout this journey.’s passions lie at the crossroads of the written word, public health, and civic engagement.