I am a mental health researcher working at the intersection of equity, youth well-being, and culturally grounded care. My work is shaped by lived experience as an Indigenous queer person with psychosocial disability from Northeast India, and focuses on addressing who gets to participate in and benefit from mental health research and innovation.

With over two years at Sangath’s Addictions and Related Research Group, I have contributed to intervention design, qualitative research, and proposal development across depression care, alcohol use, and youth mental health. Currently, I collaborate globally through Generation Mental Health, strengthening youth- and lived-experience-led approaches to research and advocacy.

Why This Matters for AI and Mental Health

As AI tools rapidly enter mental health spaces, there is an urgent need to ensure they are safe, inclusive, and responsive especially for young people in moments of distress. Current systems often overlook the realities of marginalized communities, reinforcing existing inequities.

Our work focuses on developing frameworks and programs that benchmark safe, ethical, and context-sensitive use of AI (including large language models) for young people with lived experience of mental health challenges.