Srinidhi Pallerla knows firsthand that sometimes the hardest, most challenging moments of our lives, can help inspire something great. Her younger brother was born in 2020 at just 24 weeks along and weighing less than one pound. He spent months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and it was there that Srinidhi witnessed the power of community support and volunteers.  From custom-sized clothing and toys, to financial resources and encouragement, she saw the ways volunteers impacted these NICU families’ lives. It didn’t take long before she set out to make a difference too. 

She started with a bake sale at her middle school and raised $800 over three days for the NICU. Then in 2023, she founded Steps to Impact, an organization dedicated to helping address community needs. To date, Steps to Impact has raised more than $4,000 in support of NICU families, nursing homes, Title 1 schools, and for local first responders. It is also expanding internationally with chapters now in Texas, Maine, India and Singapore.

In addition to her love of service, Srinidhi also fell in love with medicine during her time in the hospital. She started emailing doctors and labs at just 14 years old, asking questions and researching volunteer or internship opportunities. As a result, she secured a Junior Ambassador role at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Inspired by her own experiences, she then founded MedConnect in 2024 at her high school to expose other students to hands-on medical initiatives and potential careers in the healthcare fields. The club has grown to more than 170 students in the past two years and dedicated more than 120 hours of volunteer service at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. 

Srinidhi also combines her love of medicine with her love for learning through award-winning biomedical research. She is set to present her work with the University of New England focused on neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopment disorders at the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET). Her project focused on the gut-brain axis and neurological disorders took first place for biochemistry at her high school’s science fair, and will soon compete at the state level. Her findings will also be published in the Journal of Pharmaceuticals and Experimental Therapeutics by the end of April, 2026.

Srinidhi’s humility shines through in her leadership. She knows that in order to be a strong leader, you also have to be a good listener, a good organizer, and a good team player. These are lessons she shared during her TEDx talk on leadership, titled Passion, Purpose, and Progress, and qualities she plans to use while pursuing her dream of attending medical school, and specializing in gynecology, perinatology, or neonatology.