Meet Our Youth Leaders

Adin Helfand

YLC Co-Chair

Woodside High School, California

Organizer for the iSummit. Builder of Teen Leadership Council Instagram (@lookup.tlc) for teens to inspire greater consciousness on social media. Started a podcast to address various topics related to digital wellbeing and mental health awareness. Outside of Lookup, she worked with Diversify Our Narrative (a student-led organization focusing on promoting anti-racist narratives and reforming California high school curriculum). Adin also serves on several task forces in her school district to both integrate technology and remediate educational inequities. More..

Vinaya Sivakumar

YLC Co-Chair; Heads Up Campaign

Ursuline Academy, Ohio

Advocate for social issues, breaking stereotypes and stigmas and using technology to make lesser known voices heard. After living in America for 10 years, she moved to India at the age of 13 to study at an international boarding school. Vinaya has a large interest in the field of technology and design. Using those skills, she began to create platforms and virtual solutions to increase the outreach for smaller organizations. Traveling around the globe, meeting a plethora of people and having first-hand experience with various social issues made her strong, versatile and the person she is today. More..

Shivani Murugapiran

Programs and Partnerships Chair

South Forsyth High School, Georgia

Director of Programs and Partnerships at LookUp's Teen Leadership Council. Her experiences in life led her to develop a driving passion for literacy - one that would encourage her to ignite changes. Through her engagement with LookUp.live and the Center for Humane Technology, she devised specific initiatives, including the Youth Toolkit and the "Disconnect to Reconnect" podcast, to spread the impact of this movement. Shivani is also the CEO and founder of Striking Summit, a nonprofit that provides marginalized communities with educational opportunities and life skills. In her work as the president of her school's Girls Who Code and Future Business Leaders of America, she is a strong advocate for digital and financial literacy. More..

Dhisha Kukalakuntla

Liaison to Positivity 101

School for The Talented And Gifted

Advocate for positivity and mindfulness. Her experiences with teen mental health issues led her to create Positivity 101, an initiative to normalize and prioritize mindfulness among the youth, especially high school students. She also actively serves as an ambassador for her district's SEL initiatives. Dhisha is currently working with LookUp to spread awareness about mindful tech use and hopes to inspire healthy relationships with technology into the future.. More..

Chloe Mshana

Liaison to @MentalityMasterpiece

Academy of Health Sciences at PGCC, Maryland

Proud advocate for all. At age fourteen, she founded @mentalitymasterpiece, a community of 6k+ people passionate about wellbeing. Chloe is also a member of Harvard’s Making Caring Common Youth Advisory Board and the Student Services Task Force in her school district. As the eldest daughter of Ugandan and Tanzanian immigrants, Chloe is deeply committed to POC activism. Thus, she is Co-Project Director at Detester Magazine (a youth-led nonprofit focused on social justice). Additionally, Chloe is working to devise a digital wellbeing solution for today’s youth.  More..

Leylah Murad

Social Media Co-Chair

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York City

Majoring in Forensic Psychology and minoring in Social Entrepreneurship at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY). WSJ Noted Advisor. LookUp Leadership Lab. Strong advocate for mental health and homelessness awareness. In the process of starting her own company focused on individual identity work, inspiring people to get to know themselves in depth, in order to tap into their unlimited power. More..

Caoi Jorge

Creativity Chair

Brazil

Brazilian undergraduate student of Computer Network in technical school. I'm really concerned about the ways the Internet is affecting my generation, and I want to be part of the solution. I believe art and music are ways to raise awareness.

Chanel Williams

Social Media Co-Chair

University of Southern California, California

Passionate about using Social Media as a platform for advocacy on societal injustices she views and experiences daily. Her advocacy for societal injustices is apparent through her activism work in her school and the co-founding of Courageous Conversations, a student-led advocacy club that focuses on raising awareness of systemic racism in our world. Chanel's other interests include baking, reading, and creative editorial work. More..

Abhiram Pulavarthi

High Technology High School, New Jersey

is the founder of LucidTech, an organization aimed at promoting tech for good among the next generation of technologists. Through writing articles, creating competitions, and hosting workshops, Abhiram raises awareness on tech issues ranging from artificial intelligence, social media, and robotics. He is also president of his school's finance club, a member of Congressman Pallone's Youth Advisory Committee, and a mechanic on his school's VEX robotics team. More..

Celine Bernhardt-Lanier

Liaison to Log Off Movement

School Barcelona

Franco-American and the founder of iConnect, a venture aiming to solve the issue of phone dependency in teenagers. Through iConnect, she builds healthier communities through digital wellness, mindfulness practices, and face-to-face relationships. As an ambassador on the Advisory Board of the Children Screen Time Action Network, she hopes to spark a movement to engage youth to tackle the negative effects of digital dependencies, create more balance, and celebrate our shared human connection. More..

Emma Lembke

Liaison to Technically Politics

Washington University

CEO and Co-Founder of LOG OFF. LOG OFF is a movement dedicated to rethinking social media for teens by teens. Log Off uses a plethora of mediums to further dialogues about the multifaceted nature of social media through our podcast, blog, digital challenge, and three leadership groups. They represent over 11 countries, and are constantly looking to expand the LOG OFF community. More..

Aliza Kopans

Liaison to Technically Politics

Brown University

is a high school senior from Boston, bringing her goal of digital balance for all to LookUp.Live's Teen Leadership Council. Also a youth voice on Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood's Action Network Advisory Board, Aliza is passionate about facilitating healthy screen-time conversations that lead to spaces where people choose to LookUp. In her free time, Aliza loves making art, taking spontaneous road trips, and exploring the great outdoors. More..

Bea Battelle

Liaison to Digital Wellness Lab

Riverdale Country School, Bronx, NY

In her high school, Beatrix began keynoting middle school assemblies, educating younger students on the impact of their digital footprint and how to manage their online personas. She pioneered her school’s first-ever middle school digital citizenship club; a club designed to allow middle schoolers to learn, question, and be mindful of their online profile. Most recently, Beatrix has been working with Harvard Medical School/Boston Children’s Hospital’s brand new Digital Wellness Lab. More..

Keegan Lee

Liaison to Log off Movement

The Burlington School, North Carolina

Gravitated toward the subject of digital wellbeing during the pandemic when she found her screen time increase exponentially. Keegan started to make changes and learned how to reduce my screen time, find the true meaning of human connection. Now, the director of the wellbeing at the Log Off Movement. She has also written articles on digital wellbeing and the influence of parents on child's tech use. Sh is grateful to be a part of this movement and to experience a community of people keen to support this cause for the long term. More..

Diana Bishopp

Liaison to Heads Up Campaign

Lake Forest Academy, Ohio

Started the first Heads Up club at Deerfield Academy in November 2020. This club focused on getting teens off their devices and teach them to use their phones in more productive ways. The club holds a school-wide screen time competition to help the students become more “Heads Up.” Since this club worked so well, she started a nationwide campaign which allows other schools to have similar clubs and competitions. In only 3 months, we have 20+ schools around the nation ready to start their own Heads Up club and/or competitions. More..

YLC Alumni June 2021

Alexa Gwyn

2020-21 Chair, Liaison to Headstream

Palo Alto High School, California

brings her experiences and youth perspective to the LookUp Teen Leadership Council. Through seeing first hand how technology affects young people, she got involved with Headstream’s Youth 2 Innovator program during quarantine, helping create richer and more meaningful digital experiences for youth. She also advised Limbix on their new Spark app, providing CBT to teens with depression. As a part of her high school’s Social Justice Pathway, Alexa works toward building anti-racist values across all platforms, on and offline, in order to give BIPOC youth a voice. Alexa’s other interests include backpacking, surfing, molecular biology, reading, and playing the saxophone/singing for her band. More..

Tory Hansen

Founder of YLC

Cornell University

As a member of the Common Sense Media Teen Council, she first heard about Look Up in a presentation by Juliet Gildehaus about the Look Up Challenge. Inspired by Juliet’s passion for digital wellness at her own boarding school, Victoria was eager to help bring conversation and awareness about tech/life balance into her own communities and show other teens that they too can embrace digital wellbeing. More..

Sophie Eng

YLC Founding Member

Wesleyan University

Co-founded the first high school tech mindfulness club. This club spearheaded “LookUp Challenges” at the high school level and is now focused on unification against screen addiction. Sophie is currently working on her Girl Scout Gold Award with LookUp.live. She is helping expand its accessibility to schools across the country with more widely available resources. More..

Varshene Sivaprakash

YLC Alumni

Irvine High School, California

has a great passion for mental health, tech life balance, and general well being of the community. She loves to have conversations with those around her whether that be strangers or friends, and she enjoys  learning about new perspectives and lives.

Haydn Wolfers

YLC Alumni

Vanderbilt University

is a co-founder of the first high school LookUp Club called the Mindhood Club. The Mindhood Club has organized Lookup Challenges that encourage students to take a break from their phones and learn how to develop a better relationship with technology. Haydn is also working on a Girl Scout Gold Award project. She is visiting 5th grade classes to teach about digital wellness and tech/life balance. She plans to share more information by making a website and video.

Liam Brown

YLC Alumni

Phillips Exeter Academy, Massachusetts

is a sophomore at Phillips Exeter Academy, and works with LookUp as a web developer and member of the Teen Leadership Council. His goal is to pursue a career in software development, a field where tech-life balance is important for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. His other interests include problem solving (though debugging tests his patience), puzzles, and hiking the White Mountains.