Sophie Szew
Pronouns: (she/they)
Biography
Sophie Szew (she/they) is a mental health justice activist, public speaker, poet, the youngest appointee to the United States’ federal government, serving as a National Advisory Council Member for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and a Forbes 30 Under 30 2025 Awardee. Sophie’s activism is rooted in their lived experiences with institutionalization and systemic healthcare injustice. At 15 years old, she was told by her doctors that she had weeks left to live as it would make more sense for her to die than receive eating disorder treatment in a non-thin body, which led her to dedicate her life to ensuring no one is denied access to the care they need. The first time Sophie shared her story was while writing poetry about her experiences from inside hospital walls, which is when they discovered the power of using her voice to spark hope and change. Her story made its way from spare pieces of notebook paper in the hospital and into the White House where she shared her story with President Biden at the MTV Mental Health Youth Action Forum, onto the stage of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’s Inauguration, and into the ears of those served by organizations she has advised like Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, Mental Health America, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness. She aims to build intergenerational bridges to help uplift the ways in which her generation engages in communal care in the digital world and through in-person activism through storytelling, including through poetry as the inaugural poet to LA Mayor Karen Bass, and as the founder of the column “Truth From Today’s Youth” on the publication Mental Health News Education. Her work around harm reduction on social media and its intersection with healthcare justice has been highlighted by the Today Show, the LA Times, NBC, CBS, and Spectrum News. Sophie is a junior at Stanford University majoring in American Studies with a concentration in Mental Health Justice and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.
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