Devika Bhushan, MD, is a pediatrician and public health leader on a mission to drive health innovation, resilience, and equity. As California’s Acting Surgeon General (2022) and its inaugural Chief Health Officer (2019-2022), Dr. Bhushan was a key public health advisor to the California Governor. In these roles, she led policy and practice innovation at a statewide level by co-leading the launch and implementation of the ACEs Aware initiative, focused on healing from childhood trauma.

Her expertise spans trauma-informed systems, stress and resilience, mental health, and gender and health equity — with work and perspectives featured in The Lancet, Pediatrics, JAMA, Slate, NPR, The Los Angeles Times, and Forbes Health. Dr. Bhushan trained at Harvard and Johns Hopkins.
Dr. Bhushan serves on Stanford’s adjunct faculty and as a senior advisor to entities that aim to advance health, innovation, and equity, ranging from non-profits to a venture capital firm, as well as on the Board of Directors of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the California Partners Project, co-founded by California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

Dr. Bhushan is also an award-winning mental health spokesperson. Having publicly shared her own journey with bipolar disorder in 2022 to destigmatize mental illness and spread hope, she now leads a newsletter community and YouTube channel/podcast to share evidence-based insights for well-being.

Dr. Bhushan is a parent, an immigrant, and a first-generation Indian-American.