Serena Bian

Serena Bian (she/her), Research Advisory Board 

Working with Dr. Vivek Murthy, Serena is the Project Co-Lead for Loneliness & Connection for the U.S. Surgeon General within the federal government. She helps lead and shape the Office of the Surgeon General’s work addressing loneliness, community, and connection, with a focus on cultural and systems change.  

Serena says, “I consider my professional work a calling—the threads of loneliness and disconnection within my own life, as well as the healing and transformative power of human connection I’ve experienced in my life, are what bring me to this work.” She is actively involved in experimental spiritual communities and monasticism, drawing on the contemplative Christian and Buddhist traditions.  

“As a Gen Zer, I am interested in studying, supporting, and living out the questions of how we experience faith and the divine within the context of the issues of our times: How can the language of spirituality and religion support the work that my generation is confronted with (polarization, climate change, loneliness, inequality, and more)?” She brings these questions and perspectives to her work as a Research Advisory Board member at Springtide. 

In her spare time, Serena is sustained by regular silent retreats, warm dinner parties with friends, intergenerational connection, the Redwoods and land of Northern California, books, and poetry.