Academia loves a certain kind of scholar. 

The one who thrives on deadlines, produces relentlessly, and treats exhaustion as a badge of honor. It rewards those who conform, who push through, who make peace with a system that demands everything and gives little in return.

But what happens when that model doesn’t fit? When your brain resists rigid timelines?

Prerna Subramanian, 29, has spent a lifetime navigating these questions, not by conforming, but by challenging the system. A queer, neurodivergent academic, researcher, and founder of ParADHDise, Prerna has dedicated their work to dismantling academia’s impossible expectations and replacing them with something more radical: strategy, community, and joy.

Originally from Korba, Chhattisgarh, Prerna’s journey has taken them across cities, institutions, and disciplines, from Delhi to Chennai to Ahmedabad to Kingston. Each move reinforced a simple truth. Stability in academia is an illusion. For those who don’t fit into the system, survival requires adaptation.

So, Prerna didn’t just learn to play the game. They rewired it.

As a neurodivergent academic. A fierce advocate. An unapologetic disruptor.

Through mentorship, community-building, and their own lived experience, Prerna has carved out a different way of life.  

Neurodivergence, academia, and the art of playing the system

Prerna never set out to be an academic.

“I never chose academia so much as I kept moving, and universities were the only spaces that would absorb the motion.”

Growing up, Prerna always felt out of sync with the way the world expected them to think, work, and exist. But it wasn’t until adulthood, after years of struggling with focus, rejection sensitivity, and executive dysfunction, that they recognized themselves in the framework of neurodivergence. The realization didn’t come as a revelation; it came as an explanation.

Academia, however, wasn’t built for minds like theirs. It demands constant self-regulation, resilience against rejection, and the ability to function in rigid structures. It treats burnout as inevitable, feedback as impersonal, and productivity as a moral virtue.

Prerna experienced this firsthand. Moving through academia’s hallowed halls, each transition felt monumental. But in reality, they were just swapping one institutional dialect for another. Struggling under expectations of rigid output, discipline, and silent perseverance, they found that traditional productivity models only set them up for failure.

Frustrated by systems that weren’t built for their brain, Prerna built ParADHDise—a survival kit designed by and for neurodivergent minds.

Discovering ParADHDise: A dopamine boost for your brain and soul

A collection of BTS-inspired neurodivergent tools, ParADHDise provides tangible, dopamine-friendly strategies to navigate executive dysfunction, rejection sensitivity, and the overwhelming cycles of burnout that academia demands.

Why BTS?

For Prerna, BTS isn’t just a band, it’s a blueprint for survival. Their music, especially songs like Paradise, rejects hustle culture’s toxic obsession with relentless ambition. Instead, BTS embraces joy, rest, and self-acceptance, a philosophy that deeply shaped Prerna’s approach to neurodivergence.

“BTS taught me that success doesn’t have to mean exhaustion. Their work helped me see that rest is not failure, and that’s exactly what I try to remind others through ParADHDise.”

That philosophy shaped three core tools designed to help neurodivergent individuals reclaim success on their own terms.

ParADHDise tools: Reclaiming neurodivergent success

Lightstick Trackers: Turning productivity into play

Inspired by BTS concert lightsticks, this tool maps energy levels so neurodivergent individuals can schedule work when they’re naturally most productive.

•  Instead of forcing productivity, users work with their brains, not against them.

Mood Seesaws: Managing emotional highs and lows

Rejection sensitivity can turn even minor feedback into emotional earthquakes. Mood Seesaws help users externalize their emotions, mapping them out in a way that feels less overwhelming and more navigable.

“It’s like gamifying your feelings,” Prerna says. “Instead of being trapped in an emotional spiral, you can step back and say, ‘Okay, I see what’s happening here.’”

By visualizing emotional highs and lows as a natural rhythm rather than a failure, Mood Seesaws make it easier to process difficult moments without being consumed by them.

Feedback Spells: Transforming criticism into magic

For many neurodivergent people, academic feedback doesn’t feel neutral, it feels personal. Prerna knows this well. “I used to read a reviewer’s comments and immediately think, ‘I’m terrible at this. I shouldn’t even be here.’”

Prerna reframes criticism as a spell-casting process, detaching it from personal worth and making it a strategy, not an attack.

“Instead of thinking, ‘I failed,’ you turn it into, ‘Ah, the Reviewer #2 spell has been cast, and I must gather ingredients to counter it,’” Prerna laughs.

This shift removes the emotional sting from feedback, making it something to work through rather than be crushed by.

ParADHDise isn’t therapy, but it is therapeutic.

It’s about reclaiming control over how academia interacts with neurodivergent minds. It’s about learning to navigate institutions without sacrificing your well-being.

And when she’s not developing tools for neurodivergent folks, Prerna also spends time mentoring. 

“I’m not your therapist. I’m your go-to friend who tells you how to get through academia when the playing field isn’t level,” they say, when asked about their mentoring approach. Prerna offers strategy and real, tangible ways to exploit the system before it extracts everything from you.

For them, scholarship isn’t about lonely struggle—it’s about shared joy, movement, and community. It’s about ideas that emerge not in hushed libraries, but in laughter-filled rooms, in street corners over chai, in the spaces where people actually feel alive.

“Academia tells you the serious thinker is someone alone, disciplined, silent. But I think the best scholars are the ones who are noisy, who love, who dance, who don’t separate joy from learning.”

Rest as resistance: The radical act of doing less

After years of chasing the academic dream—PhD, tenure track, publishing—Prerna hit a wall. Burnout wasn’t just a possibility. It was inevitable.

So they asked themselves:

What if rest isn’t failure, but strategy?

In a world that glorifies burnout, what if refusing to overwork is an act of defiance?

Academia thrives on the illusion that rest is a reward, something you earn only after overproducing, publishing, and constantly proving your worth. But Prerna challenges this idea completely.

Prerna argues that reclaiming time, taking naps, setting boundaries, and refusing to answer emails past work hours, is not laziness. It’s strategy. 

So, they prioritize:

🔹 Mentorship over metrics.
🔹 Community over competition.
🔹 Shared joy over solitary struggle.

“If I have to be anywhere, I want to be on the floor of a steamy, slightly overpacked sauna, eating a crispy vada, surrounded by comrades, talking shit, laughing, and planning some chaotic but deeply necessary collective action.”

Because at the end of the day, the best ideas aren’t born in solitude—they’re built in community.

Want to get in touch with Prerna? Connect with her on Topmate or LinkedIn.