Cynthia Arnsdorff (she/her) lives in a 100-year-old farmhouse in Georgia, where she oversees 141 acres of forestry and wetland preservation. Diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis in Michigan in 1967, she has seen disparities in health care based on location firsthand.
Cynthia holds a B.S. Business came calling when her first love of archeology proved ill-suited to a person with her condition. After two decades in the fashion industry, she left her job as an executive at a national women’s apparel and footwear catalog to become a caregiver for her husband, an environmental scientist. His diagnosis of a rare genetic neurological disease introduced her to the world of genetics and continues to drive her passion for precision medicine. Finding resources scarce for families with his disease after they relocated to a coastal town from a metropolitan area, Cynthia co-founded a support and educational nonprofit. Eventually, she shifted her focus to her family’s legacy of heart and autoimmune conditions by serving on Georgia’s Advocacy Subcommittee for the American Heart Association and on the Patient Advocacy Council for the Global Healthy Living Foundation/CreakyJoints.
When not tending to her garden or interacting with universities and organizations on the protection of vanishing natural landscapes, Cynthia can be found swimming or planning one of her travel adventures near or far with a camera in hand.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Turning Discovery into Health