In 2017, Joel graduated from Yale University, earning a BA in Molecular Cellular Developmental Biology. There, Joel served as an elected member of the Yale student government and director of a longitudinal mentorship program based in low-income neighborhoods. After graduating, he completed a Master’s in Medical Science at Boston University. He spent a year as a clinical research assistant at Providence Hospital, researching the best treatment modalities for appendicitis.
At Washington State University, Joel served as Medical Student Council President and the co-founder and president of a Student National Medical Association chapter. He is also the founder and director of the Coug Health Academic Mentoring Program (CHAMP), a mentoring program dedicated to increasing the number of underrepresented students interested in medicine.
Online, Joel is better known as the ‘‘Medical Mythbuster.” He is committed to fighting health disparities in medicine through education and regularly shares topics about racial disparities, the hidden history of medicine, and biases in healthcare and other industries on his TikTok and Instagram (@joelbervell), where his platforms have over 760,000+ combined followers and 120 million+ impressions.
He has been invited to speak at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Google, Meta, on behalf of the Congressional Black Congress and Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the Clinton Foundation, Barclays Bank, Morgan Stanley, Network of the National Library of Medicine, Verizon, Open Society Foundations, Bank of America, General Electric and more. His brand collaborations include Google, Neutrogena, Samsung, Listerine, Gushers, the American Medical Association, American Lung Association, and BET. He has also spoken on well-known local and national media outlets, including Good Morning America, NPR, YahooNews, and WebMd, has produced digital media content featured on Vox, Aljazeera, and Brut Media, and has published work in prestigious academic journals such as the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Joel currently is a participant in the White House Office of Public Engagement’s Healthcare Leaders in Social Media Roundtable, on the Council for Responsible Social Media, serving as the American Medical Association’s Medical Student Digital Fellow, working with the World Health Organization’s Digital Communications Team to combat the spread of misinformation on social media about COVID-19, and working on a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion project with the VA Hospital systems.
The United Brain Association advocates Joel’s past, current, and future work in the brain and mental health field and wishes him continued success in all his endeavors!
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