Joel A. Bervell, MS
Joel A. Bervell, MS
Medical Student/ Social Media Medical Educator
Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
Joel Bervell is a third year Ghanaian-American medical student at Washington State University, Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. He is the co-founder of Hugs for, a non-profit that is dedicated to empowering the next generation of high school global leaders. Today, Hugs has mobilized hundreds of youth volunteers and fundraised over $500,000 worth of material gifts and monetary donations and successfully planned trips to Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. In 2017, Joel graduated from Yale University, where he earned a BA in Molecular Cellular Developmental Biology. At Washington State University, Joel served as Medical Student Council President and the co-founder and president of a chapter of the Student National Medical Association. 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. Joel is committed to fighting health disparities in medicine through education and regularly shares topics about racial disparities/ biases in healthcare and other industries on his TikTok and Instagram (@joelbervell) where his platforms have over 400,000+ combined followers and 40 million impressions. He has been invited to speak at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Clinton Foundation, Network of the National Library of Medicine, Verizon, Open Society Foundations, Bank of America, General Electric and more. 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. He currently is working with the World Health Organization’s Digital Communications Team with a collection of health professionals combatting the spread of misinformation on social media about COVID-19, and on a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion project with the VA Hospital systems. Joel has been named by TikTok as the top 2021 “Voice for Change,” was featured by TikTok as one of 10 “Changemakers” on their inaugural Discover List, named as one of ten recipients of the 50K MACRO x TikTok Black Creatives Grant, and was a nominee for the AdColor Awards. Mashable called him “your next must-follow creator.” He is the recipient of the National Medical Association’s Emerging Scholar Award, the highest academic honor presented to a student by the National Medical Association. Joel has served in an advisory role on the boards of multiple organizations including the National Student Response Network, Hope in A Box, and the Ron Brown Leaders Network Council.