Who We Are

Ripal Shah, MD, MPH is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She has post-graduate training in Integrative Medicine and Addiction Medicine, and specializes in the care of racial minority and LGBT+ adults. Before her time at Stanford, she completed graduate school at Harvard in Health Care Management and Policy (where devising Mangata was her masters thesis project), an MD from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and a BS from Duke University in Economics and Chemistry. During her training at Stanford, she served as Chief Resident of the program, as Chair of the Chief Residents’ Council, and served on the Stanford Health Care Diversity Cabinet. She is the Director of the Race and Mental Health Lab at Stanford, and is a recipient of Medscape’s “25 Rising Stars in Medicine” award in 2020. The Mangata Foundation is Dr. Shah’s third venture in the non-profit sector, her first being as founder of Shots for Shots, Inc., delivering vaccines to children under 5 in Asia and Africa, and the second being as founder and director of From The Ground Up, Inc., a successful U.S.-based organization creating recreational equipment for children with disabilities.

Julia Gillette is founder of Art Empowerment For Life, a 501(c)3 organization that creates scholarship funds to notable art and design schools for children, adolescents, and young adults. As founder, Julia has organized fundraising events that have created more than $50,000 in scholarship funds. An aspiring surgeon who aims to pair medicine with art therapy, Julia believes wholeheartedly in the power of creative expression in healing, and increasing the accessibility of these therapies within underserved communities. After graduating from Stanford University in 2020 with a double major in Psychology with Honors and Art History, Julia joined the Mangata team because of her belief in providing cost-free mental health resources to all communities.
As a student at Stanford, Julia was captain of the Stanford Women’s Division I Squash Team, exhibited original artwork in more than ten exhibitions, received two research grants and one creative project grant, and co-authored two peer reviewed psychopathology papers within Ian Gotlib’s Stanford Neurodevelopment, Affect, and Psychopathology lab. Alongside her role within Mangata, Julia currently works in the Surgical OR at the Cleveland Clinic Hospital in Indian River, Florida while she applies to medical school. Julia is extremely honored to be a member of the Mangata team!