Dr. Bhushan serves on adjunct faculty at Stanford, and as a senior advisor to entities like GreyMatter (a venture capital fund focused on mental health), Slingshot AI (the world’s first AI for therapy) and One Mind. She frequently advises on mental health representation in the arts, including to V (formerly Eve Ensler). In partnership with Dr. Bruce Perry, she is writing a children’s book series focused on stress and resilience. She serves on the national Board of Directors for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the nation’s leading mental health organization.

Previously, as California’s Acting Surgeon General (2022) and the office’s inaugural Chief Health Officer (2019-2022), Dr. Bhushan was a key public health advisor to California’s Governor, and co-developed the ACEs Aware initiative, focused on healing from childhood trauma.

Dr. Bhushan’s policy, research, and clinical expertise spans stress and resilience, anti-fragile parenting, mental health, gender norms and health, trauma-informed systems, medical gaslighting and bias, and health equity. Her expertise is featured in NBC, NPR, Slate, Rolling Stone, Yahoo, the LA Times, The Lancet, Pediatrics and JAMA. She is a global keynote speaker on reducing bias, discrimination and stigma and enhancing health equity. She trained at Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Bhushan is an award-winning mental health activist, known for publicly sharing her journey with bipolar disorder. She appears in the PBS documentary BrainStorm.

Having spent her early years between India, the Philippines, and the US, Dr. Bhushan is an immigrant and a first-generation American. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and child.