Speaker's Profile

Dr. Devika Bhushan is a pediatrician, public health leader, and author with expertise in health innovation, stress and resilience, trauma-informed systems, and gender and health equity. Dr. Bhushan serves as Chief Medical Officer at Daybreak Health, which brings personalized mental health support directly to youth in schools, and as a senior strategic advisor to entities that aim to advance health, innovation, and equity, ranging from non-profits to a venture capital fund. She is on Stanford’s adjunct faculty, and also serves on the national Boards for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the California Partners Project. Previously, as California’s Acting Surgeon General (2022) and its inaugural Chief Health Officer (2019-2022), Dr. Bhushan was an advisor to the California Governor and co-led the launch of the $500 million ACEs Aware initiative, focused on healing from childhood trauma. She is an award-winning mental health spokesperson and appears in the documentary BrainStorm (2025).