Meet the MMHI Team

Vicki is Program Director of the Center for Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing within Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She has over twenty years of experience working within the public health, education and mental health sectors developing and managing innovative, community-based programs at the local, state, national and international levels. At the Center, she develops and directs a broad portfolio of projects promoting wellbeing, early intervention and increased access to mental health services, particularly for young people ages 12-25. She is leading the technical assistance team implementing allcove - a first of its kind integrated youth mental health model in the U.S.; as well as building a national Media and Mental Health Initiative, partnering with the media, mental health and technology sectors to enhance the positive impact of media on youth mental health and wellbeing.

Before establishing Mind Strategies LLC (www.mindstrategies.com), Dr. Schwartz served for eight years as chief medical officer of The Jed Foundation. Previously, he was university dean of students for six years after establishing and serving as director of the Counseling Center at Yeshiva University. He is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine. Dr. Schwartz was medical director and chief psychiatrist at the NYU Counseling Service. He has also served as assistant director of residency training in psychiatry at NYU Medical Center.

He is a Distinguished Life Fellow, was a member of the Presidential Task Force on College Mental Health, and co-chair of the working group on law and college mental health all of the American Psychiatric Association. He was also a co-chair of the Committee on the College Student of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. He has written and lectured extensively on college mental health and suicide prevention; particularly concerning the management of mental health crises and suicide in colleges and legal issues in college mental health. He has provided guidance and consultation to many universities including: Columbia, U of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Tulane, USC, Hamilton, Rutgers Medical Center, Washington State, GW, Johns Hopkins, Manhattan School of Music and Truman State.

Outside of the higher education area, he has served as an advisor to the NFL, NBA, NCAA, US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Harpo Productions, ABT, HBO, Facebook/Instagram, Gun Free Kids, Dear Evan Hansen, MTV, and numerous other movies and media outlets. Dr. Schwartz has been quoted regularly in the NY Times, Wall St Journal, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and many other newspapers, print and online publications.  Dr. Schwartz co-edited (with Dr. Jerald Kay) the text, Mental Health Care in the College Community (Wiley, 2010).

Dr. Steven Sust is early career faculty at Stanford University's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Sust primarily works to extend the accessibility of child and adolescent psychiatry by working with under-served populations in primary care clinics at North East Medical Services, Ravenswood Family Health Center, United Indian Health Services, and Two Feathers Native American Family Services. He teaches and supervises trainees at Stanford's psychiatry training programs, and Stanford's pediatrics department's residency program. Dr. Sust is also passionate about Asian mental health through current service as AACAP Asian caucus founding member, co-chair of the child and adolescent committee of the Psychiatric Physicians Alliance of California, and prior service as co-chair for San Mateo County’s Chinese Health Initiative. His public health interests include socioemotional learning programs for families, and supporting media organizations like the Asian American Journalists Association(AAJA) around youth mental health in AAPI communities. In his spare time, he mentors students at Stanford's Asian American Activities Center. 

Kyra is currently a sophomore at UC San Diego majoring in Marine Biology with a minor in Environmental Systems. In addition to mental health advocacy, she is very passionate about climate change mitigation and the conservation of marine ecosystems. She became involved with #goodforMEdia to help youths develop a healthier relationship with social media and to destigmatize conversations about mental health.

Tiffany is currently a junior majoring in Human Biology & Society with a minor in Biomedical Research at UCLA. Aiding with the development of CineWell in the summer of 2021 as the Youth Media Consultant, Tiffany is passionate about supporting mental health initiatives and contributing towards biotechnology innovations. She believes CineWell is crucial for current youth to have the choice of previewing the accuracy of movies & shows in terms of mental wellness, as well as to be introduced to healthy media-consumption advice. Outside of CineWell, Tiffany enjoys golfing, advocating for public health, and performing research with a neuroscience lab.

Natasha (she/her) is a Research Intern with the Media and Mental Health Initiative and senior at The Harker School. At the CYMHW, she studies the role that the media plays in suicide contagion, the sociopolitical effects of irresponsible reporting, and the barriers that media professionals face to responsible suicide reporting and to portrayal of young people's mental health that encourages awareness and destigmatization. She is currently applying methods of measuring newspaper's suicide adherence to suicide reporting guidelines to social media to see how adherence to guidelines differs for social media versus news articles, how adherence compares across different social media platforms, and how current guidelines can be optimized for social media. Natasha got involved with this research because of her own experience growing up in the digital age and seeing how social media increasingly shapes the way we view ourselves and others.   

Emily is a senior in high school, and incredibly excited to be a part of Cinewell's Youth Critic Council! She hopes that the council's reviews and discussions can help improve accessibility and representation of mental health in media in an inclusive, validating, and educational way.