Meet the Founder
Hi, howdy, salaam! My name is Tehnyat J. Sohail (she/her). 👋
Who I Am
I am an autistic and ADHD Pakistani American epidemiologist and clinical social work grad clinician-in-training. I am a writer by absolute necessity and also the founder of The Bouncy Brain.
I grew up in a tiny town tucked away in the North Georgia mountains, where I was raised by Pakistani immigrant parents, which meant growing up with a foot in multiple worlds from an early age. That experience shaped much of my curiosity about culture, identity, systems, and community belonging. It also taught me to pay close attention to the ways people make meaning, and to the ways institutions decide whose meanings matter.
My work sits at the intersection of public health, clinical social work, philosophy, phenomenology, neurodivergence, and storytelling. I have pursued each of these paths because they offer different tools for understanding the world and responding to it. Together, they shape how I think, write, work, and contribute.
The Bouncy Brain
I help translate research, lived experience, and complex ideas about neurodiversity into clearer ways of thinking, communicating, and building support.
My work is particularly concerned with the gap between awareness and meaningful inclusion. Rather than treating neurodiversity as an individual issue alone, I am interested in how families, organizations, institutions, and communities can change the environments and systems that shape people's lives.
Through The Bouncy Brain, I bring together systems-level research expertise, clinical training, lived neurodivergent experience, and a commitment to making complex ideas more accessible and useful so that all neurotypes (bouncy or not) can thrive.
The Bouncy Brain’s Phenomenological Field Notes explores neurodivergent cognition through raw observations, conceptual frameworks, research, and lived experience.
Professional Experience
I hold a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and have more than eight years of experience in public health research, primarily in violence prevention.
My work has spanned:
- Military settings
- State health departments
- Research universities
- Nonprofit organizations
- Social service organizations
I have contributed to initiatives addressing sexual assault, suicide prevention, substance misuse, and other public mental health challenges. Across these settings, I have focused on using research and data to understand complex problems and develop prevention strategies that strengthen communities.
Clinical Training
While research remains central to my work, I have increasingly felt called toward the clinical side of mental health care. I am currently pursuing a Master of Social Work with a clinical mental health concentration, building on my public health background with direct practice experience.
I recently completed my clinical practicum at The Neurodiversity Clinic in Salt Lake City and currently provide service coordination through the Nevada Autism Treatment Assistance Program in Reno/Carson City, supporting families of autistic children.
My long-term goal is to open a private practice serving neurodivergent individuals and emerging adults, with a focus on trauma, addiction, and life transitions.
Formal Education and Training
Masters in Social Work (M.S.W.) Candidate
Clinical Mental Health concentration | University of Oklahoma (expected 05/2027)
Masters in Public Health (M.P.H.)
Epidemiology concentration | Georgia State University (2023)
Bachelors of Science (B.S.)
Psychology & Philosophy | Georgia State University (2020)
Writing
Writing is central to how I think, feel, make sense of experience, and communicate complex ideas. My literary work explores neurodivergence, culture, identity, structural power, phenomenology, and the systems that shape how people understand themselves and one another.
I write experimental essays, fiction, memoir/autotheory, and cultural criticism. I am currently working on a dystopian speculative-fiction novel exploring cultural erasure and a hybrid memoir/autotheory examining structural extraction across multiple domains.
Tehnyat is my author website and home to my literary work and creative projects, including Phenomenological Drafts, my author newsletter about writing process, creative development, and the unfinished work of meaning-making.
The Bouncy Brain is the home of my professional and educational work, including Phenomenological Field Notes. The newsletter examines how neurodivergent people experience the world, how those experiences are interpreted by others, and how we can build systems that better support all neurotypes.
My North Star
As a neurodivergent person myself, I bring both lived experience and professional training to everything I do. Whether I am analyzing population-level data, supporting individuals in clinical settings, writing, or developing educational resources, I am ultimately interested in the same question:
How can we build systems that better support human flourishing?