Niharika Shukla

Niharika is a high school student from Pennsylvania who is passionate about tackling the mental health crisis for youth with activism, research and policy. Leading a youth activism group, Niharika co-wrote Pennsylvania Senate Bill 781 and House Bill 1648 alongside state senators and representatives to establish excused mental health days off for over 1.7 million students in Pennsylvania. Niharika co-wrote and led the passage of the statewide Teen Mental Health Awareness Day Proclamation, signed by Gov. Josh Shapiro, and was the sole author of the corresponding Cumberland County Proclamation, for the past two years.

 

Niharika works as a research assistant at labs at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanford University, and Columbia Psychiatry. She was recently appointed to Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation Youth Advisory Board and serves as a Youth Advisor to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Her research and activism have been recognized on ABC News, the NASDAQ billboard in Times Square, and as a Princeton Prize in Race Relations National Award Winner.