About Liza Bernstein

July-August 2023 update: Liza is in the process of creating a website about her Book, Story, and Idea Coaching Services. She just started a Substack — check it out here!


Patient Advocate, Facilitator, Writer, Speaker, Organizer, Interdisciplinary Artist & Innovation Consultant Devoted to Connection and Repair.


Liza Bernstein (she/they), a Third Culture Kid who is NED (No Evidence of Disease) after three cancers is a patient advocate, interdisciplinary artist, and innovation consultant devoted to connection and repair.

Liza's advocacy serves a global audience via social media, conference attendance, live-tweeting, speaking and media engagements, peer mentoring, and relationship-building. She also collaborates, co-designs, and advises across the multi-stakeholder healthcare spectrum to break down silos, foster understanding, promote education and empowerment, and accelerate change.
First speaking engagement:
Project Angel Food
20th Anniversary Gala Fundraiser, 2009

In late 2010, Liza began to explore the worlds of breast cancer and healthcare innovation on Twitter and never looked back.

Her work at the intersection of healthcare innovation, technology, and human-centered design has made impact at groundbreaking companies including Cure Forward, Science 37, CanSurround, Symplur, Medidata, Omicure, and BioNews; and at organizations including Stanford Medicine X, A Fresh Chapter, and the Tigerlily Foundation. Liza's background in human-centered design includes projects with RGA/LA, IDEO, Bruce Mau, and Medicine X Design Studios.
NCCS's tweet re 2020 Healthline article.
A Stanford Medicine X founding ePatient scholar, advisor, and former board member, Liza has given talks internationally on topics including Patient-Centered Design; Dignity in Healthcare; Mental Health and Cancer; Death and Bereavement; Social Media and Patient/Clinician Relationships; and Shared-Decision Making.

Liza, who is also an interdisciplinary artist (writing, Capoeira Angola, ceramics), is a TCK (Third Culture Kid) who grew up in South Africa, France, and the US. She is passionate about connecting and collaborating across vastly differing cultures and digs deep into her life experience and expansive creative training to do whatever it takes to facilitate understanding and communication—she’s no stranger to improv, which has the added benefit of yielding lots of laughs.

Recently, Liza executive produced, directed, and hosted A Window Into Rare, Rare Disease Day Panel Discussion at BioNews, where she was the Senior Director of Patient and Community Engagement. And, she delivered a talk on Innovation in Surgery from the Patient Point of View for the Inworks Innovation Initiative, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

Areas of Interest Include:
  • Art and Illness/Disability/Medical Humanities
  • Equity, Anti-Racism, Disability Justice, Community Building
  • Emotional Side Effects of Cancer and Illness/Medical Trauma/PTSD
  • Neurodivergence
  • Mentoring/Empowerment
  • Cancer/Breast Cancer/Metastatic Breast Cancer


Links To Some Of Liza's Work:

Phase One Foundation, 2018:
Social Media and Cancer Care:
Noisy Chatter or Meaningful Discourse?
  • Phase One Foundation Speaker Series, Los Angeles, CA, 2018: Social Media and Cancer Care: Noisy Chatter or Meaningful Discourse?
  • Stanford University School Of Medicine, 2017, Guest Lecturer: Precision Medicine Needs Precision Kindness 
  • Society for Clinical Research Sites, Webinar Co-Presenter, 2017: Collaboration is Key: ePatients & Clinical Research
Stanford Medicine X, 2017:
Death and Bereavement in the Digital Age
Stanford Medicine X, 2015: 
Los Angeles Pop Up Event
Stanford Medicine X, 2013:
Dignity, an Ignite Talk





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