Sonali (Alyy) Patel is a trailblazing scholar and activist who has made monumental strides for Queer South Asian Women in North America. She is a Canadian-born South Asian lesbian with a passion for building community capacity through knowledge construction..Sonali’s research focuses on anti-Brown racism in lesbian communities. She pioneered this subject with her undergraduate thesis, which was published in the Journal of Lesbian Studies and ranked the 7^th most-cited article of 2019. Her research has also received an award from the Canadian Sociological Association. She recently published her work on violence in the sexual minority closet in Canada’s top sociology journal, the Canadian Review of Sociology. Her broader research interests include intersectionality, sexuality, race, and social movements. Sonali is a SSHRC-funded scholar currently pursuing her PhD in Sociology at the University of British Columbia. She previously earned her M.A. from the University of Ottawa, and an honours B.A. in Sociology & Sexual Diversity Studies from the University of Toronto at St George. Beyond her academic work, Sonali is the founder of the Canadian nonprofit organization, the Queer South Asian Women’s Network, a keynote speaker, and a published poet.