From The Beginning…
In September of 2016, our founding team arrived as freshmen at the University of Michigan. In our first year, the four of us saw what national statistics have been reporting for years: today’s students are under a lot of pressure. Many are struggling with stress, exhaustion, anxiety, and depression.
We wanted to help... so we dreamed up hEARt Listens.
The hEARt Listens team was officially formed in November of 2017. We spent the next year on needs assessment– fleshing out the problem and designing our unique solution. In the fall of 2018, we began developing the hEARt Line and our hEARt Supporter training program. We piloted a basic version of our training program with a high school class in early March 2019. Soon after that, we launched our first University pilot: we invited 25 Michigan students to test the hEARt Line in April 2019 while we served as Supporters. The feedback we received enabled us to refine both the platform and our training program, and we beta-tested our updated Training Program with our first Supporter cohort (the S.C.1) in Fall of 2019.
In January 2020, we registered hEARt Listens as a nonprofit. The trained Supporters who were interested in serving on the Line became hEARt Listens volunteers, and we officially launched the hEARt Line for Michigan students in February of 2020.
What’s Happening Now?
We were seeing a gradual increase of traffic on the hEARt Line… until March 9th. When the pandemic hit the United States and Michigan went virtual, students turned to hEARt, and the virtual nature of our service made it possible for us to help. We’re growing our user base at Michigan, and are continuing to train compassionate students as hEARt Supporters.
We’re also starting to look ahead. We want to expand this program to populations outside Ann Arbor- universities, colleges, and other organizations as well.
Our Team
Executives
Aastha Dharia: Co-Founder & Co-Executive Director
Aastha studied Neuroscience & Sociology at the University of Michigan, and graduated in 2020. Aastha’s experience in managing team budgets and spearheading publicity for other organizations has lent her the expertise necessary to coordinate the financials and marketing for the project. Through her work with transitioning students and her leadership of previous organizations, she has further developed communication skills that have been invaluable to organizational planning.
Aria Thakore: Co-Founder & Co-Executive Director
Aria studied Biomedical Engineering & Multidisciplinary Design at the University of Michigan, and graduated in 2020. Aria’s experience in developing mobile health interventions and leading multidisciplinary engineering design project teams has been instrumental in developing the operational and technical parts of the project. Through the skills she’s acquired from her former roles, Aria has been invaluable in supporting the project development. Her work as part of a development team also helped her learn the value-based selling strategies required to pitch to potential customers.
Sheily Shah: Co-Founder & Technical Lead
Sheily studied Computer Science and Creative Writing at the University of Michigan, and graduated in 2020. She is a software engineer with experience in full stack development, and leads the technical development. She drives hEARt’s technical development in our efforts to create a smooth, user-friendly experience on our platforms. She is also hEARt Listen’s main point of contact with technical mentors. Her experience working in software engineering and product development continues to help us establish our technical footing and build the user experience.
Swathi Sampath: Co-Founder & Operations Lead
Swathi studied Public Health and Statistics at the University of Michigan, and graduated in 2020. She works closely with the Executive Directors to coordinate hEARt Listens’ operations on the ground at universities. Swathi serves as a mentor and guide to our Chapter leaders. She draws on her public health experience, which includes content development centered around personalized and holistic wellbeing, to help students communicate training and Summit material to the volunteers that make up our Supporter cohorts.
Advisors
Dr. Lindsay Bornheimer: Chief Clinical Advisor
Dr. Lindsay Bornheimer is the team’s chief clinical advisor and is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) with over 10 years of mental health practice experience. Dr. Bornheimer is a suicide prevention researcher who joined the School of Social Work Faculty in 2018 and Department of Psychiatry of Michigan Medicine in 2020.