Dr. Bhushan serves as Chief Medical Officer at Daybreak Health, which brings personalized mental health support directly to youth in schools, as adjunct faculty at Stanford, and as a senior advisor to entities that aim to advance health, innovation, and equity, including GreyMatter, a venture capital fund dedicated to mental health innovation, and Health Management Associates, focused on health policy and strategy. She serves on the national Board of Directors for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the nation’s leading mental health advocacy organization, and the California Partners Project, co-founded by California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom to focus on gender equity and child well-being.

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 spokesperson, advisor to the California Governor, and led policy and practice innovation at a statewide level through co-developing the $500 million ACEs Aware initiative, focused on healing from childhood trauma.

Dr. Bhushan’s policy, research, and clinical expertise spans trauma-informed systems, stress and resilience, mental health, and gender and health equity. Her work and perspectives has been featured in The Lancet, Pediatrics, JAMA, National Public Radio (NPR), Slate, and The Los Angeles Times. She trained at Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Bhushan is an award-winning mental health activist, known for destigmatizing living with serious mental illness and spreading hope by publicly shared her journey with bipolar disorder — reaching and inspiring millions. She leads vibrant well-being communities through a newsletter and YouTube channel/podcast, and stars in the documentary BrainStorm (2025).

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 partner and son.