mPower Award Previous Recipients
2023: Aliza Lopez
Aliza Lopez is a 17-year-old healthcare advocate, mental health activist, and researcher. With many multidisciplinary interests in this field, she intersects her work with education and cultural competence. Aliza currently directs the 501(c)(3) organization, Medicine Encompassed — fostering a space that combines STEAM and health literacy to push out experiential learning platforms. Within her nonprofit, she is also a founder of The Astrocyte Initiative, a mental health project focused on increasing accessibility to resources and toolkits for student groups. She also works at the company Neolth as the Outreach Subcommittee Leader of their national ambassador program — arranging educational mental health presentations and wellness workshops for different institutions. Aliza has collaborated with Hopelab in California to launch a research study, analyzing how sociocultural factors impact minority groups’ accessibility to mental health services. She pairs her hands-on work with her authorship on research publications, including one with a Dartmouth College laboratory about SSRI usage in patients. Additionally, Aliza is a member of IDONTMIND’s “Our Future in Mind” community and YOUNGA’s network as a previous Mental Health Working Group Leader.
2022: Sam Gerry
MHA’s 2022 mPower Award goes to Sam Gerry. Sam is a 20-year-old rising junior at Bates College in Lewiston, ME. He's the co-founder of Kick It for a Cause, Inc., a charity kickball tournament turned nonprofit organization supporting suicide prevention. Additionally, Sam is an undergraduate research assistant at The Hamilton Lab, researching teen mental health, including social media, sleep, and suicide prevention. He is also the Council Lead at Unsinkable Youth, a member of the National Center for the Prevention of Youth Suicide's Youth Advisory Board, and is a Telosity Youth Ambassador.
2021: Seika Brown
MHA’s 2021 mPower Award was presented to Seika Brown. The mPower Award celebrates the life and work of a teen or young adult who speaks out about mental health issues to educate his or her peers and fight stigma.
Seika Brown is a 19-year-old researcher, author, and student advocate for mental health. She is the founder and CEO of YLG Research; an initiative that aims to discover how mental health is defined globally. In the past, Brown co-founded and ran "Archnova", a youth organization that worked on mental health policy change, where they passed a bill in Washington State. She currently works alongside citesRISE and their Seattle Youth Leader Network, and is also a recipient of their youth challenge award.
2020: Satvik Sethi
MHA's 2020 mPower Award goes to Satvik Sethi. The mPower Award celebrates the life and work of a teen or young adult who has spoken out about mental health issues to educate his or her peers and fight stigma.
Satvik is a 22-year-old mental health activist and social entrepreneur on a journey to make the world happier. He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Runaway, a 100% student owned and operated social venture that aims to promote mental health awareness and help those in need of emotional support. Runaway has been featured by UNICEF, World Health Organization, and Vice. Satvik has also been featured on the 25 Under 25 Social Entrepreneurs List by Impaction and Culture Media Co., and has been recognized as 1 of 8 Inspiring Mental Health Youth Activists by Mashable, and 1 of 15 Students Changing Collegiate Mental Health by Mental Health America as part of the first cohort of our Collegiate Mental Health Innovation Council for the impact he has created through his passionate advocacy.
2019: Zachary Mallory
MHA’s 2019 mPower Award was presented to Zachary Mallory, a mental health and suicide prevention advocate from Kansas City, Missouri. Zachary is a suicide attempt survivor and a survivor of Conversion Therapy. He has been very active with local, state, and national legislation to urge stakeholders to raise awareness and take initiative to combat stigma surrounding suicide and mental health. Zachary is a former Human Rights Campaign (HRC) National Youth Ambassador and was awarded the 2016 Spirit of Matthew Award from the Matthew Shepard Foundation for his tireless efforts to erase hate and accelerate acceptance.
2018: Charlie And Hannah Lucas
MHA's 2018 mPower Award was presented to Hannah and Charlie Lucas from Cumming, Georgia for the creation of the notOK App™. Hannah, 16, struggled with depression and self-harm last year, her freshman year of high school, after being diagnosed with a chronic illness that led her to be bullied and taunted at school. An idea formed in her head during her lowest moment: an app that would let people know she was not OK. With the assistance of her younger brother, Charlie, 13, the Lucas children got to work on the app idea which would become the notOK App™. The notOK App™ is a digital panic button that stores up to five trusted contacts that can be reached via text message that says: “Hey, I’m not OK. Please call, text, or come check up on me” along with the user’s GPS location. With the recent launch of the notOK App™, Hannah and Charlie have been able to empower people struggling with mental illness to get the help they need from their friends and family.
2017: Nadia Ghaffari
MHA's 2017 mPower Award was presented to 17-year-old Nadia Ghaffari. A junior at Los Altos High School, Nadia is also the founder of the 501(c)3 nonprofit organization TeenzTalk.org and the author of the children's book Growing a Brain. Nadia was inspired to start a peer movement to build a community of compassionate teens and mental health activists who are educated on how to be well and prioritize wellness, after her own experience with aiding in the prevention of a close friend's suicide. TeenzTalk.org acts as a global peer-to-peer forum where teens can interact with each other through videos, learn from each other’s experiences, access a huge variety of professional resources, and inspire each other to stay hopeful and resilient.
2016: Nancy Su and Eddie Liu
MHA's 2016 mPower Award was presented to a two-person team from Duke University, Nancy Su and Eddie Liu. Together, they created one of the most popular and helpful smartphone apps for depression called MoodTools. MoodTools is a free smartphone app that provides six evidence-based tools to aid against clinical depression and negative moods on a large scale. The mPower Award celebrates the life and work of a teens or young adult who has spoken out about mental health issues to educate his or her peers and fight stigma.
2015: Safe&Sound App Creators
MHA's 2015 mPower Award was presented to a team of young women from the Kennewick, WA TriTech Skills Center for their creation of the Safe&Sound app. Nominated by their Tri-Tech Instructor Kristel Kinder, Amanda Arellano (18-years-old), Stephanie Lopez (17), Marina Stepanov (17), Chloe Westphal (17) were among four student groups nationally to win the Verizon Innovative App Challenge earlier this year. The Safe&Sound app concept brings mental health awareness and resources for teens. Inspired by personal experiences and recent school shootings—including one in their home state—the team knew that the app could help teens express their feelings in a safe way and reach out for help when needed. Features for this app include daily stress management, information on stress, anxiety, depression, journaling, and resources. Safe&Sound will be a functioning, downloadable app by June 2015. The award will be presented at MHA’s Clifford Beers Awards Dinner on June 4 and Chloe Westphal will be at the dinner to accept the award on behalf of the team.