Madhura Balasubramaniam is a patient living with Crohn’s Disease and is an IBD patient advocate based in Chennai, India. She is a co-founder and the Chief Operating Officer of Strategic Alliance for Intercultural Advocacy in GI (SAIA). Madhura identifies as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and is passionate about minimizing barriers to access to high quality healthcare for patients across the globe. Through her advocacy, she seeks to improve disease state knowledge, dispel stigma, bolster acceptance of IBD and chronic GI conditions and treatment options, and improve access to culturally sensitive and SOGI informed care. She collaborates with patient advocates and multidisciplinary clinicians from across the world to develop patient education and professional development programming and has several co-authored publications in the IBD space.
Madhura is currently a PhD student in Politics and International Relations at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and has a Master’s Degree in Development Studies from IIT Madras.