Aria Rani
SindledeckER

Aria Rani Sindledecker, 17, is a Senior at Mountain View High School and a dedicated advocate for youth mental health. She believes that youth know what youth need and has spent years raising awareness, building programs, and amplifying peer voices. She serves as Mental Health Committee Lead and Executive Board Member of the Ambassadors, is Student Founder of her school’s Peer Counselors program, is President of her high school chapter of Bring Change to Mind, and serves on the BC2M Teen Advisory Board and her district’s Superintendent’s Advisory Board.

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Rani is deeply involved in neuroscience and mental health research. In 2023, she began working in the Matthew State Lab at UC San Francisco using R for data analysis in Autism Spectrum Disorder. In 2024, she joined the Helen Wilsey Lab, conducting an independent neuroscience project involving advanced lab techniques. In 2025, she continued in the Matthew State Lab, advancing research at the intersection of cellular neuroscience and neurodevelopmental disorders. She also worked on a mental health research project with Dr. Lisa Fortuna and Dr. Michelle Porche of UC Riverside, focusing on youth mental health services.

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She serves as a Youth Strategy Advisor for the Stanford Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing, advising on adolescent mental health curriculum. She has also served on the Youth Advisory Board of the California Children’s Trust and the Youth Advisory Committee of the California Partners Project, founded by First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and previously contributed to the Children’s Partnership’s $10 million peer-to-peer rollout.

 

Rani is a prolific speaker, sharing her voice at UCSF’s Pritzker Psychiatry Building opening, the Krause Center for Innovation, on a SF Commonwealth Club/UCSF panel, statewide mental health forums, and more. She is the national recipient of Mental Health America’s mPower Award, which recognizes one student annually for exceptional leadership in mental health advocacy.

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An award-winning documentarian, Rani has created four short films highlighting youth mental health: Mentally Educated, The Peer-to-Peer Movement: Students Saving Lives, Stigma-Free Nation: Pathway to Parity, and Power to Save a Life. She teaches middle school students to advocate through filmmaking and guides them in submitting their work to national competitions.