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. 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 work and perspectives have been featured in The Lancet, Pediatrics, JAMA, NBC, NPR, Slate, and the LA Times. She is a frequent keynote speaker on reducing bias 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.