The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health is a collaborative fund focusing on the mental health and well-being of adolescents who are of color and/or LGBTQ+. Created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a devastating impact on young people across the United States, The Upswing Fund will provide critical resources to front-line organizations that provide the services that young people rely on. In addition, the Fund supports efforts to address key systemic challenges that have resulted from COVID-19, such as policy changes that expand access to mental health services for young people.
As a collaborative fund, The Upswing Fund aggregates philanthropic support to achieve greater impact and leverages donor giving to scale proven interventions, accelerate innovation, and advance critical efforts to create policy change to expand the availability of mental health support. Our donors share a commitment to The Fund’s strategic grantmaking as informed by our independent expert Advisory Committee.
The Upswing Fund is seeded by Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company created by Melinda Gates to advance social progress in the United States. The Fund is advised by a renowned set of mental health experts with deep clinical and research expertise and a passion to support youth and communities. The Upswing Fund is powered by Panorama, a Seattle-based 501(c)(3) action tank working to solve problems by influencing people and policy and through innovative partnerships.
To be eligible for grants from The Upswing Fund, organizations must serve or benefit the Fund’s target populations ages 10–18, be certified as 501(c)(3) by the IRS and meet the criteria established by the Fund.
Solomé Tibebu
Director, The Upswing Fund
Solomé Tibebu
Director, The Upswing Fund
As Director of The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health, Solomé is responsible for overall vision and strategy and is the primary collaborator and liaison with the Fund's Advisors. She also serves as a spokesperson and represents the Fund in engaging with a diverse range of stakeholders, including grantees, thought leaders, partners, and influencers.
Solomé is a behavioral health strategist passionate about frontier technologies and solutions transforming mental health, equity and access. Previously, Solomé worked in behavioral health and human service consulting, venture capital, corporate development and various operating roles at behavioral health software companies large and small. Solomé founded and ran a mental health tech startup and, as a former anxious teen, founded and ran the non-profit AnxietyInTeens.org for ten years.
Solomé is a board director or advisor to various adolescent and adult mental health organizations and for-profit companies, including the Telosity adolescent mental wellbeing venture fund, Headstream youth mental health incubator, Hopelab, Made of Millions and CaringBridge. Solomé is the co-author of ReThink Behavioral Health Innovation, the source for digital behavioral health technology and startups.
Sierra Fox-Woods
Senior Project Manager, The Upswing Fund
Sierra Fox-Woods
Senior Project Manager, The Upswing Fund
Sierra Fox-Woods is a Senior Project Manager for the Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health. In her role, she supports grantmaking to increase access to mental health services to adolescents in need.
Sierra comes to Panorama most recently from Kamehameha Schools, a nonprofit educational trust, where she supported a statewide public-private partnership with the University of Hawai‘i and honed her skills in partnership management, research, reporting, and project management. She holds degrees in Business Management and Hawaiian Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and an MBA from Chaminade University.
Sierra is Native Hawaiian whose first passion was learning and living her culture through hula. As a student she was given the opportunity to travel to and perform in Japan and Aotearoa throughout high school and college.
Gabrielle Fitzgerald
Founder & CEO, Panorama
Gabrielle Fitzgerald
Founder & CEO, Panorama
As Founder and CEO of Panorama, Gabrielle Fitzgerald is responsible for oversight of The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health and provides strategic counsel on vision, strategy, communications, and stakeholder engagement. She also oversees the grantmaking process, from review of applications to the award of funds. Gabrielle has more than a decade of experience building high-impact grantmaking programs.
A global leader who believes innovative approaches and catalytic coalitions can solve the most challenging issues, Gabrielle leads dynamic teams and collaborates with partners to spark global change. Prior to founding Panorama, she directed the $100 million Ebola Program at the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, investing in creative approaches to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Gabrielle previously served as the director of Global Program Advocacy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading the team that advanced policy and advocacy agendas for the organization’s global issues. In 2014, she won the Gold Medallion award from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Communication Programs for her leadership on malaria. Gabrielle is the chair of American Friends of United for Global Mental Health and serves on numerous advisory committees and panels.
The Upswing Fund named a ten-person Advisory Committee of diverse experts across a range of adolescent mental health specialties who support our work to provide resources to adolescent mental health providers and mental health policy, advocacy, and system enabling organizations. The committee, in partnership with the Fund’s director, defined the grantmaking priorities and criteria for awarding grants.
Anne Marie Albano, PhD, ABPP
Anne Marie Albano, PhD, ABPP
Anne Marie Albano is an author, cognitive-behavioral therapist, and full-time academic psychologist. Anne Marie Albano's research focuses on the development and testing of psychosocial treatments for anxiety and mood disorders and understanding the impact of these disorders on developing youth. As a professor of Medical Psychology in Psychiatry at Columbia University, founding director of the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders and clinical site director of New York Presbyterian Hospital's Youth Anxiety Center, her work has influenced a myriad of cognitive behavioral treatment manuals.
Albano has also contributed to the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). She has served as principal investigator for multiple NIH funded studies examining the relative efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, medication, combination treatment and pill placebo in youth. Her book with Leslie Pepper, You and Your Anxious Child: Free Your Child from Fears and Worries and Create a Joyful Family Life, was a 2014 ABCT Self-Help Book Award winner and 2014 Self-Help Book Award winner from the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
Alfiee M. Breland-Noble , PhD, MHSc, MA
Alfiee M. Breland-Noble , PhD, MHSc, MA
Dr. Alfiee M. Breland-Noble (recognized professionally as Dr. Alfiee) is an internationally recognized scientist, author, media personality and speaker. With a primary focus on teens, college students, families and communities of color, she is recognized for her remarkable ability to motivate and inspire by translating complex scientific concepts (developed via her 20+ years of research leadership in Research 1 institutions) into everyday language. Her media work includes television (e.g. NBC, PBS, Fox 2 Detroit, A & E, and Lifetime Television); social impact (e.g. Soulpancake) and celebrity podcasts (e.g. Gettin’ Better with Ron Funches), print media (e.g. Black Enterprise, Philadelphia Inquirer) and radio (e.g. NPR and WHYY). As Founder and Board President of the AAKOMA Project, Inc. (initially an academic psychiatry research lab; now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit), Dr. Alfiee and her team have built a research enterprise founded on the science of adolescent and community engagement. She was part of the senior leadership team with Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman and the Congressional Black Caucus on the report Ring the Alarm and the Pursuing Equity in Mental Health Act of 2019. Her academic publications and presentations reflect her commitment to a culturally relevant, patient centered approach to reducing mental health disparities and her skills were on display when she moderated a celebrity panel with Ms. Taraji P. Henson, Charlemange Tha God and Mrs. Jenifer Lewis on racial disparities and addressing the mental health needs of African American youth.
Dr. Alfiee received her training at Howard University, New York University, the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the Duke University School of Medicine and believes deeply that her culturally relevant science can help ALL people actualize the love and light within them.
Angela Diaz, MD, PhD
Angela Diaz, MD, PhD
Angela Diaz, MD, PhD is the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor, Department of Pediatrics and Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. After earning her medical degree at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, she completed a Master in Public Health from Harvard University and a PhD in Epidemiology from Columbia University.
Dr. Diaz is the Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center (The Center), a unique program that provides comprehensive, interdisciplinary and integrated, medical, sexual and reproductive health, dental, optical, behavioral and mental health services to young people ages 10-24. The Center has become one of the largest adolescent-specific health centers in the United States, serving more than 12,000 young people every year – at no cost to them. The Center is a major training site in the field of adolescent medicine, psychology, social work and health education. It has research programs funded by NIH.
Dr. Diaz has conducted many international health projects in Asia, Central and South America, Europe and Africa. Dr. Diaz is active in advocacy that helps shape policy and is a frequent speaker throughout the country and around the world.
Teresa Halliday, MA
Teresa Halliday, MA
Teresa Halliday, MA serves as senior director of practice improvement at the National Council for Behavioral Health. Teresa possesses more than a decade of experience that spans community-based practice, academic research and nationally-focused settings, with particular interest in youth mental health and substance use issues. Her broad portfolio has included efforts in substance use prevention, HIV, health literacy and workforce research and implementation projects, and evidence-based and community defined practices in support of underserved and vulnerable populations. Teresa has also managed clinical behavioral research studies investigating contextual factors of addiction and withdrawal, including genetic, emotional, hormonal and pharmacological elements that may impact recovery. She currently directs the CONNECTED youth mental health initiative which, through the National Council and partner organizations, supports novel community-based approaches to increase access to mental health supports for diverse, underserved youth populations, with meaningful youth involvement at every stage. With a passion for combining research and practice, Teresa emphasizes cultural awareness and coalition building while working across barriers to achieve sustainable programs and understanding of interactions between mental, behavioral and physical health.
Kimberlyn Leary, PhD, MPA
Kimberlyn Leary, PhD, MPA
Kimberlyn Leary, PhD, MPA, is an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and an associate professor in the department of health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she is the “Enabling Change” program director. Leary is also a senior advisor for McLean’s Center of Excellence in Women’s Mental Health. She is a fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School and with New America’s International Security Program. Leary consults as a senior advisor to the CEO at the National Math and Science Initiative and is a Trustee of Amherst College.
As a Robert Wood Johnson health policy fellow, she served as an advisor to the White House Council on Women and Girls for one year, developing the “Advancing Equity” initiative, which focused on improving life outcomes for women and girls of color, and for an additional six months, as an advisor to White House Office of Management and Budget’s Health Division.
Benjamin F. Miller, PsyD
Benjamin F. Miller, PsyD
Dr. Benjamin F. Miller, PsyD is the Chief Strategy Officer for Well Being Trust, a national foundation committed to advancing the mental, social and spiritual health of the nation. A clinical psychologist by training, he has worked to advance mental health throughout his career. At Well Being Trust, he helps oversee the foundation’s portfolio ensuring alignment across grantees, overall strategy and direction, and connection of the work to advance policy. The end goal is to help advance the national movement around mental health and well-being.
Prior to joining Well Being Trust, Dr. Miller spent 8 years as an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine where he was the founding Director of Eugene S. Farley, Jr. Health Policy Center. Miller is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Stanford School of Medicine. He has published prolifically on the topic of mental health integration and public policy, and his work has appeared on CNN, NBC News, USA Today, NPR, PBS News Hour, and more.
Stephanie Craig Rushing, PhD, MPH
Stephanie Craig Rushing, PhD, MPH
Stephanie’s work focuses on designing and evaluating interventions to improve adolescent health, including an online portal for tribal health educators to access effective culturally-relevant health curricula (www.HealthyNativeYouth.org ), and We R Native (www.weRnative.org), a multimedia health resources that empowers Native teens to get actively involved in their health and wellbeing using social media, text messaging, community service grants, and links to medically accurate information. Stephanie completed her Masters of Public Health concentrating on International Health Development at Boston University, and her PhD in Public Administration and Policy at the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University, focusing on Community Health and Social Change.
Katherine Switz, MBA
Katherine Switz, MBA
Katherine Switz is the Founder and Executive Director of The Stability Network, an emerging movement of people in the workforce speaking out about their own mental health challenges to inspire and encourage others. In addition, she leads a learning effort for institutional and individual philanthropists in the Seattle area and is a Partnership Advisor for Mindful Philanthropy. Katherine also serves as a consultant and advisor to various local, national, and global mental health efforts.
Katherine brings a combination of business experience gained at McKinsey & Company and General Electric with a long track record in executive roles in the nonprofit sector. She also has expertise advising philanthropic organizations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, on how to deploy their grant capital. Prior to her work in mental health, Katherine led economic development programs across Russia, India, and Africa for major international development organizations. Katherine received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Dartmouth College. She lives with bipolar 1 disorder.
Jack Turban, MD MHS
Jack Turban, MD MHS
Jack Turban MD MHS is a researcher, medical journalist, and child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is co-editor of the book Pediatric Gender Identity: Gender-affirming Care for Transgender and Gender Diverse Youth.
His research focuses on the determinants of mental health among transgender and gender diverse youth. His original research and opinion pieces about LGBTQ mental health have appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, JAMA Pediatrics, JAMA Psychiatry, The American Journal of Public Health, and The Journal of The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, among others. He has several active research projects through The Fenway Institute and The McLean Institute for Technology in Psychiatry. He has been consulted by major tech companies, the ACLU, the HRC, and the U.S. Department of Defense regarding policies to support LGBTQ mental health.
Dr. Turban is regularly interviewed by the media to comment on issues regarding the mental health of LGBTQ youth. He and his work have been quoted over 100 times for outlets including NPR’s All Things Considered, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, ABC’s 20/20 with Diane Sawyer, The New York Times, NBC News, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Vox, Reuters, GQ, Vogue, CBC, and Vanity Fair, among others. He is a member of the media committee of The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and the communications council of The American Psychiatric Association.
Dr. Turban graduated from Harvard University magna cum laude with a B.A. in neurobiology. He earned his MD and MHS degrees from Yale School of Medicine, where he was an HHMI medical research fellow and graduated with highest honors with an award-winning thesis entitled, “Evolving Treatment Paradigms for Transgender Youth.” He completed his adult psychiatry training at MGH/McLean (Harvard Medical School).
Ken Zimmerman, JD
Ken Zimmerman, JD
Ken Zimmerman, a noted policy maker, civil rights attorney, and philanthropist, is the co-founder of S2i, a mental health strategic initiative housed at the Jed Foundation, and Jared’s Fund, a fellowship program for young people seeking end the stigma around mental illness created in memory of his son Jared. S2i is designed to strengthen promising collaboratives that contribute to the transformation of the mental health system and build on Ken’s experience as a leader in government, philanthropy, and the non-profit sector.
Ken has a lengthy career in using different approaches to change systems to promote equity and inclusion. He is currently a Distinguished Fellow with NYU’s Furman Center, a joint project of NYU’s Law School and Wagner School of Public Service, where he is teaching and examining new forms of social advocacy and policy development in the urban environment. For the prior six years, Ken directed the Open Society Foundations’ U.S. Programs and served as a co-director of the Open Society Policy Center, the foundations’ advocacy arm, where he was responsible for over $100m a year in grant-making. In the course of his work at OSF, he built the foundation’s core commitments related to democratic practice, criminal justice reform, full civic participation for immigrants and communities of color, and equitable economic growth.
Prior to joining Open Society, he was a litigation partner heading the pro bono practice group at Lowenstein Sandler PC, served on the presidential transition team for the Obama Administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development, and was chief counsel to New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine (2006–2008) when the state legislatively abolished the death penalty.