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Inseparable fights for a future where mental health policy, no longer an afterthought, helps our country thrive. Together, we will empower Americans from every town, city, and home to better care for one another by demanding and winning policy that better cares for us all.
We are coming together as a united force to press our leaders to recognize — with both policy and tangible solutions — that mental health care is health care, period. We’re winning access to care for those who are suffering but are illegally denied coverage. We’re fighting for programs proven to help vulnerable kids leave behind traumatic pasts and pursue hopeful futures. We’re working to ensure people across America can access support, no matter where they live.
Because we all go through hard times. We lose jobs and loved ones. We get anxious and depressed. We feel like we’re barely hanging on sometimes. For some of us, it’s clinical. For all of us, it matters. And when we care for our minds, it’s no less urgent than the care we need for our bodies. Each affects the other — just like us. Together, we are inseparable.
Caya Lewis Atkins
Executive Director
PFLAG
Senior Vice President of Social Impact | ViacomCBS
Associate Director, Health Collaborations Children Now
Shelley A. Hearne DrPH
Dean Sommer & Klag Professor of Public Health Advocacy
Patrick J. Kennedy
Former U.S. Representative,
Founder The Kennedy Forum
Dean, NYU Silver School of Social Work
Member & Board of Directors Didi Hirsch Mental Health Serv.
Dr. Benjamin F. Miller
Chief Strategy Officer
Well Being Trust
Norm Ornstein
Resident Scholar
American Enterprise Institute
Kathleen M. Pike, PhD
Professor & Director Columbia-WHO Center
Alicia Diaz
Co-founder
Amy Runyon-Harms
Senior VP of Operations & Strategy
Angela Kimball
Senior VP of Advocacy & Public Policy
Bill Smith
Founder & President
Chris Cordingley
Co-founder
Keris Jän Myrick
VP of Partnerships
Laura Gorsky
Policy Manager
Pooja Mehta
Inseparable Intern
Founder and Principal
GlobalDC Strategies
Caya Lewis Atkins is an experienced health policy and programming professional with experience in government, advocacy, and foundations. She is currently consulting on U.S. domestic and global health strategy, engagement and capacity building through her firm GlobalDC Strategies. Her professional interests and expertise include U.S. and global public health, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), health equity and disparities, HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Ms. Atkins was previously the Counselor for Science and Public Health at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). As a part of HHS’ senior management team she directly advised the HHS Secretary on a range of public health and science matters and collaborated with CDC, NIH, and HRSA leadership to develop and advance HHS initiatives. She was also the Chief of Staff for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) during the first years of ACA implementation and the Director of Outreach and Public Health Policy for the Office of Health Reform during the year that the ACA was successfully negotiated, passed and became law.
Ms. Atkins more recently served as Deputy Coordinator for Multi-Sector Responsibility and Diplomacy in the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) at the U.S. Department of State that oversees the implementation of the $6 billion U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In that role, she led the multilateral diplomacy and private sector engagement work of the office including collaboration and negotiation with high-ranking members of governments, foundations and multilateral organizations including the WHO, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS TB and Malaria, UNAIDS.
Prior to her work at HHS, Ms. Atkins was the Deputy Staff Director for Health for the Senate HELP committee under the chairmanship of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. In this role, she led staff work on the public health portfolio, most notably the drafting and negotiation of the prevention, wellness and public health titles of the ACA. She was also a Senior Policy Analyst focused on race and ethnicity at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Director of the NAACP Health Division.
Ms. Atkins received a BA from Spelman College and a Master’s of Public Health from the University of Michigan.
Executive Director
PFLAG
Brian Bond is a former Obama Administration official and LGBTQ advocate with an extensive background in constituency outreach and coalition bridge-building. Brian most recently served as the Coalitions Director for the Climate Action Campaign in Washington D.C., working to protect clean air and promote action to limit climate change. Prior to that, he was the Deputy CEO for the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
During the Obama Administration he served as Deputy Director for the White House Office of Public Engagement and primary liaison for the LGBTQ community, the first to serve in that role. After the successful re-election of President Obama in 2012, he moved to the Environmental Protection Agency to work on the Administration’s climate initiatives as Associate Administrator for Public Engagement and Environmental Education. Prior to these roles, he served as the Executive Director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and is credited with expanding the success of the organization and support for LGBTQ candidates during his six-year tenure, which began in 1997.
Brian is a Missouri native and has a degree in Public Administration from Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri.
Senior Vice President of Social Impact
ViacomCBS
Brianna Cayo Cotter is Senior Vice President of Social Impact for ViacomCBS’ Youth and Entertainment Group including MTV, VH1, CMT and Comedy Central, where she oversees multi-platform campaigns to engage viewers on important social issues, including the Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated mental health initiative, Half of Us, as well as MTV’s ongoing voter mobilization campaigns.
Prior to joining MTV, Brianna founded and led the global communications team at Change.org, the leading global social action platform. Throughout her career, Brianna had led high-impact and award-winning national campaigns to turn-out youth voters at Energy Action Coalition and expand paid family leave for millions of people at PL+US
Associate Director, Health Collaborations
Children Now
As part of the health team, Lishaun supports Children Now’s mental health/trauma efforts.
Prior to joining Children Now, Lishaun Francis was an Associate Director at the California Medical Association. She provided policy support and analysis for California physicians on the issues of Medi-Cal, Workers’ Compensation, and Health Information Technology. Lishaun spent over two years with the Legislative Analyst Office (LAO where she provided fiscal and policy analyses to the State Legislature on issues of mental health, developmental disabilities, and alcohol and drug programs. In Washington, D.C., Lishaun Francis worked as a Program Analyst for the U.S. Department of Education, providing fiscal support on issues of higher education.
Lishaun Francis received her Master’s of Public Policy from the University of Michigan, and her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Spelman College in Atlanta, GA.
Dean Sommer & Klag Professor of Public Health Advocacy and Director Center for PH Advocacy
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Dr. Shelley Hearne brings an extensive track record of leadership, policy impact, institution building, and teaching in health advocacy. At the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, she is the inaugural Alfred Sommer & Michael Klag Decanal Professor of the Practice for Public Health Advocacy and director, Center for Public Health Advocacy.
In addition to being a Johns Hopkins professor, Shelley currently serves as the president of CityHealth, an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente. In addition, she runs the Forsythia Foundation, an environmental health philanthropy, as a consultant.
Previously, Dr. Hearne was the founder of the Trust for America’s Health, a national public health advocacy organization, the managing director of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Health group, which included its biomedical research, food, pharmaceutical, and financial security programs, the acting director of NJ’s pollution prevention program, and the executive director of the Pew Environmental Health Commission.
Shelley has been devoted to health advocacy in practice and in teaching. She is experienced running advocacy campaigns that successfully helped pass and implement important public health policies, such as the model N.J. Pollution Prevention Act, Nationwide Environmental Public Health Tracking Network, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act, and the U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act. She was an early instructor for the Hopkins’ health advocacy course and won the national Delta Omega award for innovative curriculum. She has served in numerous national leadership positions, including chair of APHA’s executive board and vice president of the Council on Education for Public Health. She has been widely covered in the press and has substantial experience testifying before and engaging with policymakers.
Shelley has received numerous awards for her advocacy efforts, including the Senator Lautenberg Award for lifetime achievement in public health, the APHA’s Executive Director Citation, and Bowdoin College’s Common Good award. She received her B.A. in chemistry and environmental studies with honors from Bowdoin College and a DrPH in environmental health science from Columbia University’s School of Public Health.
Former U.S. Representative
Founder
The Kennedy Forum
During his time in Congress, Patrick J. Kennedy was the lead author of the groundbreaking Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (Federal Parity Law), which requires insurers to cover treatment for mental health and substance use disorders no more restrictively than treatment for illnesses of the body, such as diabetes and cancer. In 2013, he founded The Kennedy Forum, a nonprofit that unites advocates, business leaders, and government agencies to advance evidence-based practices, policies, and programming in mental health and addiction. In 2015, Kennedy co-authored the New York Times Bestseller, “A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey Through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction,” which details a bold plan for the future of mental health care in America. In 2017, he was appointed to the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.
Kennedy is also the founder of DontDenyMe.org, an educational campaign that empowers consumers and providers to understand parity rights and connects them to essential appeals guidance and resources; co-founder of One Mind, an organization that pushes for greater global investment in brain research; co-chair of Mental Health for US, a nonpartisan initiative designed to elevate mental health and addiction in policy conversations during the 2020 election cycle; and co-chair of the Action Alliance’s Mental Health & Suicide Prevention National Response to COVID-19.
Executive Director
McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University (NYU)
Constance and Martin Silver Professor of Poverty Studies
Silver School of Social Work at NYU
Dr. Michael A. Lindsey is a noted scholar in the fields of child and adolescent mental health, as well as a leader in the search for knowledge and solutions to generational poverty and inequality. He is the Executive Director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University (NYU), the Constance and Martin Silver Professor of Poverty Studies at NYU Silver School of Social Work, and an Aspen Health Institute Innovators Fellow. He also leads a university-wide Strategies to Reduce Inequality initiative from the NYU McSilver Institute.
At the NYU McSilver Institute, Dr. Lindsey leads a team of researchers, clinicians, social workers and other professionals who are committed to creating new knowledge about the root causes of poverty, developing evidence-based interventions to address its consequences, and rapidly translating their findings into action through policy and best practices.
Among their latest work is a three-year research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to study the effectiveness of a novel treatment intervention for keeping Black adolescents engaged in depression treatment.
Previously, Dr. Lindsey was an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work and a Faculty Affiliate at the University of Maryland Department of Psychiatry’s Center for School Mental Health.
Dr. Lindsey leads the working group of experts supporting the Congressional Black Caucus Emergency Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health, which created the report Ring the Alarm: The Crisis of Black Youth Suicide in America. Also, he is a member of an expert advisory board for The Jed Foundation and a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academies of Practice (NAP) in Social Work. As well, he is on the editorial boards of the journals Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research and School Mental Health.
Dr. Lindsey holds a PhD in social work and MPH from the University of Pittsburgh, an MSW from Howard University, and a BA in sociology from Morehouse College.
Member
Board of Directors
Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services
Will Lippincott is a LA-based literary agent at Aevitas Creative Management. He specializes in politics, narrative non-fiction, current events, history, and memoir, representing prize-winning and best-selling journalists at The New York Times, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, and NPR, and leading American thought leaders, scholars, and activists.
Lippincott is a founding board member and present board secretary of the media watchdog organization Media Matters for America. In 2019, he joined the Board of Directors of Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, one of the oldest and largest mental health, substance use and recovery, and suicide prevention organizations in Southern California.
In 2015, Lippincott wrote a widely-shared article in The New York Times about his struggle with depression and suicidality, the suicide of his father, and the successful adoption of a new therapy. He continues to share his lived experience to advocate for large-scale change, speaking with clinicians and consumers at conferences, events, and workshops hosted by the JED Foundation, United Suicide Survivors International, and ISIDBT, among others.
Chief Strategy Officer
Well Being Trust
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Stanford School of Medicine
Dr. Benjamin F. Miller, PsyD is the Chief Strategy Officer for Well Being Trust, a national foundation committed to advancing the mental, social, and spiritual health of the nation. Miller is a national expert in the area of mental health, policy, and ways to integrate mental health into both clinical and community settings. Prior to joining Well Being Trust, Miller spent eight years as an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine where he was the founding Director of Eugene S. Farley, Jr. Health Policy Center. He is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Stanford School of Medicine.
He received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. He completed his predoctoral internship at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, where he trained in primary care psychology. In addition, Miller worked as a postdoctoral fellow in primary care psychology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. He has written and published prolifically on the need to address specific health policy and payment barriers for successful mental health integration. He has been featured in numerous media outlets including CNN, NBC News, USA Today, New York Times, NPR, PBS NewsHour, and many more. Outside of his job, Dr. Miller enjoys playing music, mountain biking, rock climbing, and painting. He and his family live in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Resident Scholar
American Enterprise Institute
Norman Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He is a contributing editor and writer for The Atlantic, and has been an election eve analyst for CBS News and BBC News. He is also Chairman of the Board of the Campaign Legal Center.
He served as a senior counselor to the Continuity of Government Commission and co-directed the AEI-Brookings Project on alternatives to the Independent Counsel Act. Mr. Ornstein led a working group of scholars and practitioners that helped shape the law, known as McCain-Feingold, that reformed the campaign financing system. He was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.
Ornstein has a BA from the University of Minnesota and an MA and PhD from the University of Michigan. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from his alma mater in 2007. Ornstein was spotlighted as one of 2012’s 100 Top Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine.
Mental Health Advocate
CEO & Co-Founder
PYM Health
As a mental health advocate, Zak Williams focuses his time and effort on sharing his story and his experiences to support initiatives and campaigns seeking to remove the stigma and address the challenges associated with mental health topics. Zak is CEO and founder of anxiety relief company PYM and is an investor in technology and consumer packaged goods companies. Formerly, Zak was COO of the recommendation platform Crossing Minds, the Director of Business Development for media company Condé Nast, and the marketing lead for gaming and media platform N3TWORK.
Zak is a US trustee of United for Global Mental Heath and board member of mental health awareness nonprofit Bring Change 2 Mind and the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts where he focuses on guiding the organizations’ strategy and business development initiatives. He received an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in Linguistics from New York University.
Professor & Director
Columbia-WHO Center for Global Mental Health
Deputy Director
Health and Aging Policy Fellows Program, Columbia University Department of Psychiatry & Mailman School of Public Health
Kathleen M. Pike, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at CUIMC. She serves as Chair of the Faculty Steering Committee for the Global Mental Health Programs, Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Capacity Building and Training in Global Mental Health at Columbia University, and Deputy Director of the Health and Aging Policy Fellows Program. She is also a Senior Supervising Psychologist in the Center for Eating Disorders at CUIMC.
Dr. Pike has been involved with global initiatives focused on mental health, education, and women’s health throughout her career. She has held academic and administrative university appointments in Japan, where she served as Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean for Research at Temple University Japan and Visiting Professor at Keio University. She received a Faculty Fulbright Award for research on eating disorders, an area of expertise where Dr. Pike has led pioneering work on risk factors, treatment development, and implementation. She developed an internationally-disseminated and evidence-based relapse prevention treatment program of cognitive-behavioral therapy for anorexia nervosa. She conducts clinical training and education globally across the range of mental disorders to expand clinical and research capacity for treatment in low-resource communities and promote mental health literacy and advocacy for individuals with mental illness. Dr. Pike has also directed several programs that engage the arts to advance understanding and increase access to mental health services, including the Tohoku Theater Project in Japan and the National Endowment for the Arts Artist in Residency Program hosted at Columbia University.
A long-time advocate for increasing access to care, Dr. Pike has provided mental health policy consultation to Japanese parliamentary representatives and United States mental health policy organizations. She is also committed to supporting corporations in their efforts to address mental health in the workplace. As such, she consults with global corporations with the aim of integrating best practices to reduce the burden of mental illness and enhance mental health and wellbeing in today’s rapidly changing workplace.
Dr. Pike has maintained an ongoing research program supported by grants and awards from the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), Fulbright Foundation, Takeda Foundation, Japan National Institute of Health, Keio University, Columbia University, Temple University, the Japan Foundation, and private philanthropic funding. She has published over 100 articles and book chapters on eating disorders, culture and psychopathology, global mental health, and mental health in the workplace and has authored and presented more than 200 workshops, invited lectures, papers, and poster presentations.
She serves as a member of the Advisory Board for the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She is a Trustee of the Jewish Board (the largest non-profit mental health and social service provider in New York State) and the International Rescue Committee.
Co-founder
Alicia is a co-founder of Inseparable. In her role, Alicia supports Inseparable’s digital communication program, strategy development, fundraising, and organizational administration. Alicia has managed the successful launch of both Inseparable’s Hopeful Futures Campaign and A Better Response.
In addition to her work at Inseparable, Alicia works to make it easier for candidates to run for office. Prior to her work as a consultant, Alicia served as a staff assistant for the Presidential Personnel Office at the White House under the Obama Administration. Alicia earned her bachelor’s degree in economics and international studies with a concentration in peace and conflict resolution from the University of California, Irvine. A native of northern California, Alicia currently resides in Maryland.
Senior Vice President of Operations and Strategy
Amy Runyon-Harms is the Senior Vice President of Operations and Strategy at Inseparable. Amy has over 20 years of direct service, philanthropic, and advocacy experience in the nonprofit, public, and political sectors in the United States and abroad.
Amy previously served as the Executive Director at ProgressNow Colorado and as the Director of Political Outreach at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. Amy spent nearly a decade in various roles, including Director of Programs and Colorado Legislative Director, at both the Gill Foundation and the Gill Action Fund. Most recently, Amy advised women’s equality and workers’ rights organizations as an independent consultant and oversaw the human rights portfolio as a State Department employee at the US Embassy in Angola, during which time she was awarded a Meritorious Honor Award.
Amy has served on numerous boards over the course of her career and was a member of the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce Leadership Denver program. She is a graduate of Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa and spent two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Tanzania. When she’s not traveling the world with her husband Jason, Amy loves to entertain friends and explore her current home of Washington, D.C on her red Electra.
Senior Vice President of Advocacy & Public Policy
Angela Kimball is the Senior Vice President of Advocacy & Public Policy at Inseparable. Angela is a nationally recognized expert in mental health policy who is passionate about mobilizing people to champion better care and fight inequities for people with mental health conditions. Angela is a frequent contributor to national media on mental health policy and previously served as National Director, Government Relations, Policy & Advocacy at NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), where she helped advance significant legislation and investments in mental health services.
Angela’s path in the mental health movement was inspired by her son’s path of recovery after a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Her quest to find mental health care led her to early work as a family advocate, which propelled her to pursue deeper levels of policy and advocacy. As executive director of NAMI Oregon, her work led to the reinstatement of mental health and substance use coverage in the Oregon Health Plan, Oregon’s Medicaid program, and the overwhelming bipartisan passage of Oregon’s comprehensive mental health parity bill. In later roles, Angela provided expertise on a broad range of policy issues across the country as director of state policy for NAMI’s national office and gained invaluable expertise helping implement Oregon’s transformative, community-governed integration of Medicaid health, mental health, substance use and dental services as an Innovator Agent with the Oregon Health Authority.
Angela graduated from Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon and has received multiple awards for her work on children’s mental health reform and mental health parity. In her spare time, she enjoys reading fiction, spoiling her cats, and kayaking on the Deschutes River in Oregon.
Founder & President
Bill Smith is founder and president of Inseparable, and founding partner of Civitas Public Affairs Group, a values-based firm working on some of the most pressing societal challenges of our day. Bill has built his career advancing significant public policy initiatives and winning elections. He has over two decades of experience in campaign management, messaging research and communications, and movement building. Prior to founding Civitas, Bill was the national political director at Gill Action where his guidance and advice helped win nearly 200 successful state elections across the country. He led the development of innovative strategies to pass, block, and protect key policy outcomes, while advising a network of donors that strategically invested into targeted campaigns to win the freedom to marry and advance LGBTQ+ equality. Bill has worked extensively as a general consultant, and has built winning campaigns for elected officials, political groups, and non-profit organizations across the country. Bill began his career working as a political operative for Karl Rove + Company and Wilson Grand Communications. He currently serves on the boards of End Citizens United and the Reconciling Ministries Network. A native of Alabama, Bill resides in Washington, D.C.
Co-founder
Chris is a co-founder of Inseparable. In his role, Chris oversees Inseparable’s communication and research programs and supports strategy and partnership development, fundraising, and scaling of the organization. Chris has run state campaigns to increase parity access and supported efforts to pass school based mental health reforms across the country.
In addition to his work at Inseparable, Chris manages large-scale research programs and communications campaigns and advises international and U.S. based donors across a number of issues. Chris began in the office of U.S. Senator Max Baucus and was a part of the successful 2012 reelection campaign of U.S. Senator Jon Tester. Chris has also presented for the American Society for Public Administration and is a graduate of the University of Montana Davidson Honors College. Chris resides in Helena, Montana.
VP of Partnerships
Keris Jän Myrick is the Vice President of Partnerships at Inseparable. She previously served as the Co-Director of The Mental Health Strategic Impact Initiative (S2i) which aims to advance the transformation of mental health by catalyzing cross-sectional reforms, strengthening collaborations, and bridging gaps. She currently serves on the Board of and is policy liaison for the National Association of Peer Specialists (N.A.P.S.) and the Board of Directors for Mental Health America. Ms. Myrick previously held positions as the Chief, Peer and Allied Health Professions for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, the Director of the Office of Consumer Affairs for the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) of the United States Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), President and CEO of Project Return Peer Support Network, a Los Angeles-based, peer-run nonprofit and the Board President of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Ms. Myrick is a leading mental health advocate and executive, known for her innovative and inclusive approach to mental health reform and the public disclosure of her personal story. Ms. Myrick has over 15 years of experience in mental health services innovations, transformation, and peer workforce development. In June 2021, Ms. Myrick was the recipient of Mental Health America’s highest honor the Clifford W. Beers Award.
Ms. Myrick’s personal story was featured in the New York Times series: Lives Restored, which told the personal narratives of several professionals living with mental health issues. Ms. Myrick is an in-demand national trainer and keynote speaker, and authored several peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters. She is known for her collaborative style and innovative “whole person” approach to mental health care and is a podcast host of “Unapologetically Black Unicorns” which centers on lived experience, race equity and mental health change agents.
Ms. Myrick a Certified Personal Medicine Coach and Certified Therapeutic Game Master; has a Master of Science degree in industrial organizational psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology of Alliant International University. Her Master of Business Administration degree is from Case Western University’s Weatherhead School of Management.
Policy Manager
Laura Gorsky (she/her) is Inseparable’s Policy Manager. In her role, Laura covers state and federal policy for Inseparable. This included policy analysis, meeting with legislators, working with partner organizations, and creating advocacy materials.
During her time at Inseparable, Laura created a policy guidebook for state legislators interested in crafting mental health policy during their state’s legislative session. Laura has worked with Inseparable to pass legislation at the state and federal levels to expand youth access to mental health and crisis services.
Laura has a decade of political and policy experience in the states of Virginia and Texas. Laura has experience working inside and outside state legislatures and on Capitol Hill. She most recently was a Legislative Assistant for Congressman Lloyd Doggett and had previously worked as a Government Relations and Political Manager for Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. Laura also worked in the Texas Legislature during the 86th session as a Policy Aide to Representative Donna Howard.
Laura has a Master of Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas and a Bachelor of Arts from the College of William and Mary. In her free time, Laura enjoys searching for Washington D.C’s best bagel and hiking in the Shenandoah National Park.
Inseparable Intern
Pooja Mehta is an outspoken South Asian Mental Health Advocate, and has been telling her story to audiences across the United States for the last 7 years. Originally from Raleigh, North Carolina, Pooja holds a Masters in Public Health from Columbia, and is building a career working in Health Policy in Washington, DC. As a professional with lived experience and a suicide loss survivor, she is eager to further the conversation around the role public health and patient perspective plays in mental health system reform and looks forward to changing the way we think and talk about mental health and suicide as a society. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, trying new restaurants, and spending time with her loved ones.
If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988. Crisis Text Line also provides free, 24/7, confidential support via text message to people in crisis when they text HOME to 741741.