Anita Rao, M.D. is a resident physician in psychiatry at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL. She is an award-winning media figure, academic, educator, researcher, public and private sector innovator who has established herself as a cross-sector pioneer in audiovisual mental health. Dr. Rao is the first mental health correspondent and contributor for VICE Media. She also is a national contributor for the National Alliance of Mental Illness, the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization, and infuses audiovisual mental health literacy into their outreach efforts. As an academic, Dr. Rao has received numerous accolades including the prestigious Lancet Psychiatry Poster Prize through Oxford University. As a medical student, she received Department of Psychiatry’s Chairman Award and as a resident physician in psychiatry, she received the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine Educator Award in 2018. She remains committed to exploring novel documentary and other forms of media across sectors to the end of understanding the internal life and experience of individuals by externalizing those experiences through audiovisual mediums.
While at OpenDocLab, Dr. Rao is working on a white paper titled “Mindscapes: An Exploration of Audiovisual Mental Health Literacy.”