Bonnie Waltch

Director, Producer, and Writer

Bonnie has been involved in numerous PBS science series, including The Secret of Life (NOVA/BBC), Scientific American Frontiers, Out of the Past, and The Ring of Truth, as well as programs for the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. She directed and wrote Super Reefs: The Future of Coral for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and has produced exhibit media for museums around the U.S., including Niagara Falls Visitor Center, Pikes Peak Visitor Center, the Tennessee State Museum, the Nebraska State Museum, the Mob Museum, and the National World War II Museum. Bonnie has a BA in Semiotics from Brown University.

She is the award-winning senior producer and writer of the one-hour international broadcast documentary, Earth Emergency, and series of five short films, Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops, which was launched in January 2021 with a virtual event featuring the Dalai Lama and Greta Thunberg and attended by over one million viewers globally. The films have been featured in more than 50 film festivals worldwide.

Earth Emergency, the one-hour version, is being broadcast and streamed globally. The one-hour broadcast version, Earth Emergency, aired on national PBS in December 2021 and April 2022, and has been sold to broadcasters around the globe, including Australia, France, Italy, Mongolia, Latin America, Poland, and Sweden.

Sara Schley

Co-Producer, Co-Writer, Author of the Memoir "BrainStorm"

Sara is a business consultant, social change entrepreneur, speaker, and author who has led systemic transformation at renowned companies around the world. She is a mother, grandmother, community leader, and has been married for twenty-six years. She also has a bipolar II brain on the bipolar spectrum. Sara has kept this mostly secret for four decades. Until now. In her memoir, BrainStorm: From Broken to Blessed on the Bipolar Spectrum, the inspiration for BrainStorm the film, she tells her riveting story to save lives, end the stigma, and maximize healing. Sara has a BA from Brown University and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts.

Melanie Wallace

Senior Consulting Producer

Melanie is an Emmy award-winning, veteran broadcaster, programmer, and producer. Melanie has built an international reputation for her expertise in science storytelling. As the Senior Series Producer for NOVA, America’s longest running and most watched science program (now approaching its 50th anniversary), Melanie wrote, produced, and directed episodes over a span of more than 35 years. Melanie has partnered with numerous national and international media such as BBC, ARTE, NHK, and CCTV.

Melanie has served as the Impact Producer on the one-hour broadcast program, Earth Emergency, narrated by Richard Gere. The film aired on national PBS in December 2021 and April 2022 and has been sold to broadcasters globally. Her outreach work includes a screening and discussion series with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in the summer of 2020, a screening and panel discussion for members of the U.K. parliament in October 2021, and a screening at COP26 in Glasgow by invitation of King Charles III in November 2021.

King Charles III held a screening of Earth Emergency at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, November 2021.

Major General Gregg F. Martin, PhD

Consulting Expert by Experience, U.S. Army (Retired)

Major General Gregg is a 36-year combat veteran who is a bipolar survivor, thriver and warrior. An Airborne-Ranger-Engineer qualified soldier and Strategist, he commanded a combat engineer company, battalion and brigade, and was commanding general of Fort Leonard Wood, commandant of the Army War College, and president of the National Defense University. A graduate of West Point, he holds a PhD and two master’s degrees from MIT, and master’s degrees from both the Army and Naval war colleges. He has lived on the bipolar spectrum his whole life, which mostly helped him, until it went too high, and then it nearly destroyed him. His life’s mission and purpose is sharing his bipolar story to help stop stigma, promote recovery, and save lives. His wife Maggie is an Army brat, Army wife, and Army mom to three sons, two of whom are Army Special Forces veterans, and one an artist. Martin is the author of BIPOLAR GENERAL: My Forever War with Mental Illness. For more, see his website at bipolargeneral.com.

Holly A. Swartz, MD

Consulting Psychiatrist

Holly is professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Director of the Center for Advanced Psychotherapy at Western Psychiatric Hospital. With Dr. Trisha Suppes, she is co-editor of Bipolar II Disorder: Recognition, Understanding, and Treatment from APA Publishing. Dr Swartz is Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Psychotherapy and Treasurer of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders.

Devika Bhushan, MD

Senior Advisor

Devika, Expert by Experience, is a pediatrician, public health leader, and writer on a mission to drive health innovation, equity, and resilience. Previously, as California’s Acting Surgeon General, Dr. Bhushan was a key public health spokesperson and advisor to the California Governor. Dr. Bhushan’s policy, research, and clinical expertise spans trauma-informed systems, stress and resilience, mental health, and gender and health equity. Her work has been featured in The Lancet, Pediatrics, National Public Radio, The Los Angeles Times, and Healthy Children.

In addition to her role in BrainStorm the film, Dr. Bhushan serves as a senior advisor to other entities that aim to advance health, innovation, and equity, including the Weitzman Institute, focused on primary care innovation, GreyMatter, a venture capital fund dedicated to mental health innovation, and Health Management Associates, focused on health policy and strategy.

Dr. Bhushan is deeply committed to destigmatizing living with serious mental illness and to promoting healing; to this end, she has shared her own journey with bipolar disorder publicly and built a vibrant community to advance well-being through a monthly newsletter and YouTube channel.

Having spent her early years between the Philippines, India, and the United States, Dr. Bhushan is an immigrant and a first-generation American. She lives in San Francisco with her long-time partner and their son. Connect with her on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at @DrDevikaB or through her personal website.

Jim Phelps, MD

Consulting Psychiatrist

Jim is an emeritus member of the faculty for the psychiatry residency program in his hospital system; and founder of PsychEducation.org, a highly acclaimed website with detailed information on the mood spectrum and bipolar disorders for patients and families. His books include Why Am I Still Depressed? and A Spectrum Approach to Mood Disorders, the latter intended for professionals and highly interested laypeople. Dr. Phelps focused his practice on complex mood disorders for over 20 years. In addition to full-time patient care, from which he is now mostly retired, he has published multiple articles on bipolar disorders and the “Collaborative Care Model,” a system of psychiatric consultation in primary care. He currently serves as Research Editor for the Psychopharmacology Institute.