Jaya Prakash is an MD/MPH student at Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She has structured her professional trajectory upon multidisciplinary collaboration across research, education, and medicine to address the intersection of interpersonal violence and health.

As an independent researcher for four distinct groups (HEAL Trafficking, Trauma Imaging Research and Innovation Center, Harvard Medical School, and Scientific Early Life Environmental Health & Development Program), Jaya has authored a number of publications aiming to better understand and illuminate cycles of interpersonal violence while simultaneously recommending avenues for intervention. Her research incorporates a socio-ecological framework and is guided by the “Nothing About Us Without Us” movement. Jaya has been heavily involved within her community by creating as well as strengthening partnerships between academic institutions and community organizations. She has founded and led “TheirStories” at Washington University in St. Louis and “It Takes a Village” at Harvard Medical School, both of which are service-learning programs.

Through her leadership of these programs, Jaya has created educational curricula that train students and community members in trauma-informed practices while simultaneously developing site-specific service projects for each community partner that meets their specific needs. In addition to her leadership in these programs, Jaya is a mentor and volunteer for several educational and clinical service programs that increase community-wide access to information, care, and resources with the goal of ultimately reducing inequitable health outcomes and addressing structural violence. She carries her approach to interpersonal violence into clinical settings where Jaya has worked as a crisis counselor based in emergency departments for the past seven years. In this role, she provides support and care to survivors of intimate partner violence as well as sexual assault. This experience has informed her trauma-informed, person-centered approach to reproductive wellness as a medical student and a future obstetrician-gynecologist.

Read about Jaya Prakash on NYC Daily Post.