Allie Sharma was born in the US and developed a strong sense for social justice on family trips to India, from where her ancestors hail. She parlayed that early passion into not only becoming a physician, earning her MD at Cornell, but also pursuing graduate work in social policy and planning at the London School of Economics. After her residency in psychiatry at UCSF and Cornell, and working in emergency psychiatry at Columbia University, she joined a Netherlands-based NGO and was placed in Afghanistan and Burundi to integrate mental health into primary care delivery. After returning to the US she worked with marginalized communities in the South Bronx providing psychiatric services. She was also Director of the Mental Health Service Corps, under the Thrive NYC initiative. She has brought her mental health advocacy to two podcasts she has launched, Model Mentality and Coping with COVID-19 by Dr. Allie.