Joey Kaji, will be attending the University of Rochester as a part of the Rochester Early Medical Scholars (REMS) program. Joey is thrilled to return for his second year as a Youth Advisory Council Member. He has worked on health legislative projects, mental health research, and student advocacy. Joey began working in advocacy as a part of the Providers and Teens Communicating for Health (PATCH) program, where he took on a project to help the fledgling School-Based Health Centers in his district. In school, Joey loves history and computer science fields and hopes to use the skills learned there to pave the way for improved healthcare worldwide. Joey’s passion lies in combining his many interests to help improve healthcare access, especially for other youth. He hopes amplifying youth voices in regard to healthcare will lead to better lives for all.
School-Based Health Alliance Youth Advisory Council
Bringing Youth Leadership to the Forefront of School-Based Health Care
The Youth Advisory Council is a youth-led service group that brings young people together through leadership, advocacy, and service. Youth Advisory Council members share their expertise on important health topics, build connections with a network of youth who are passionate about school-based health, and cultivate knowledge and skills about public health and youth development. These young people develop and implement strategies for youth leadership development nationwide and share youth perspectives on health issues with adults and fellow youth leaders.
Joey Kaji
Muntaha Rahman
Rikhil Ranjit
“America’s healthcare system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.” Rikhil Ranjit, a senior at Alliance Academy, is a first-year Youth advisory council member and avid healthcare accessibility advocate. He took notice in his county’s gradual adoption of school-based health centers (SBHCs) and advocating for their continued expansion with his county’s commissioner. Previously, he has been involved as the lead organizer of various 5K walk/runs, annual math/spelling/oratorical competitions, and other initiatives to raise money for shelters and other key necessities for children with cancer in India. He is also involved in CADCA’s National Youth Advisory Council for drug awareness and has conducted economics research at UGA. Through his various advocacy experiences, Rikhil strives to truly make healthcare a fundamental global human right.
Nikhil Reddy
“Public health is a powerful tool to level that playing field, to bend the arc of our country away from distrust and disparities and back towards equity and justice.” Nikhil Reddy, a freshman at Stanford University, is a first-year Youth Advisory Council member from Dallas, Texas. His passion for health policy and equity stems from a combination of deep-seated personal experiences, research undertakings at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and UT Southwestern, as well as policy discourse cultivated as a national champion in Public Forum debate. Through creating and establishing national platforms promoting educational and environmental stewardship, Nikhil appreciates the importance of holistic approaches to public health challenges. As part of the SBHA Youth Advisory Council, Nikhil hopes to bridge the gap between youth perspectives and the healthcare policy-making process.
Ketan Tamirisa
Southlake, Texas
“The first step to making the world a more equitable place is providing care to those who need it the most”
Ketan Tamirisa is an incoming freshman at Washington University in St. Louis double-majoring in Global Health and Healthcare Management on the pre-med track, and is thrilled to be a second year member of the SBHA Youth Advisory Council. Ketan’s passion lies in facilitating change in his community and advocating for legislation to help mitigate disparities in healthcare. He is currently conducting university-level research in health policy at UT Southwestern and is an intern for Harvard’s STRIPED Youth Corps and Stanford’s REACH Lab. As part of this council, Ketan strives to impact others on a national level as well as foster a more healthcare-accessible environment for all.
Justin Wang
Justin is an incoming Freshman at Stanford University, where he plans on studying Economics. Outside of his role in the Youth Advisory Council, Justin serves as a Legislative Fellow in the Georgia House of Representatives, an EERG Health Economics Researcher at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health, and a Health Policy Researcher at the University of Georgia’s School of Public & International Affairs. With his end-to-end experiences concerning health policy implementation, Justin hopes to drive changeand bring equitable healthcare access to many of the socioeconomically-challenged populations living in the United States.