Isha Weerasinghe is a senior policy analyst focused on mental health and sits in the Center for Law and Social Policy’s (CLASP’s) youth team. She works on how CLASP’s issue areas impact individuals’ mental health, with a specific focus on youth, young adults, and mothers.

Ms. Weerasinghe previously worked as the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Association for Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO), where she focused on the intersections of how Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AA&NHPIs) can better access linguistically concordant and culturally appropriate care. She also did a great deal of coalition building and provided policy guidance nationally, for AA&NHPI-serving community health centers and AA&NHPI-serving organizations, in health access and equity. Ms. Weerasinghe has done community based participatory research, as well as local and state policy advocacy in her work at New York University’s Center for the Study of Asian American Health (CSAAH), working within New York City and New York State. Over the past eight years, she has also done extensive coalition work and policy advocacy on the impacts of hepatitis B in the United States.

Isha has a bachelor’s in arts degree in biology from Bryn Mawr College, and a master’s in science degree in health policy and demography from the London School of Economics and Political Science.