Her research focuses on how women with genetic breast cancer mutations, “previvors,” use writing to call for a more explicitly activist feminist healthcare agenda. She holds a PhD in rhetoric and composition from the University of Rhode Island, a Master’s in English Education from Teachers College Columbia University, an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and a BA in writing and philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. Bryna has an inherited BRCA2 mutation and serves as a co-leader for the Pittsburgh FORCE support group.