Team
Founded by two students and carried forward by undergraduate chapters — each running screenings, advocacy programs, and research in their own community.
Zaid Vellani & Rishit Bhat
Before they were co-founders, Zaid and Rishit were roommates and best friends at UCLA. That friendship founded the Breathe Better Foundation — and its UCLA chapter, BruinBreathe — to close three gaps at once: a community need for free pulmonary care, a blind spot in how few students ever encounter pulmonology as a specialty, and something more personal.
Zaid has lived with chronic asthma. Rishit had bronchitis as a child. Between the two of them, breathing problems were never abstract — they were a recurring conversation about just how debilitating a compromised set of lungs can be. Both had access to the excellent specialty care UCLA could offer. What stayed with them was who didn't, especially in the aftermath of the early-2025 LA wildfires, when so many of their neighbors were breathing smoke with nowhere to get screened.
They founded the Breathe Better Foundation in December 2025, built around three commitments: spread access to lung health through free, spirometry-based screenings; use their own research backgrounds to lead studies that push pulmonary medicine forward; and pull other students into doing the same.
The team has screened more than 100 patients, identified and referred over a dozen abnormalities for follow-up care, published two peer-reviewed papers, lectured at schools across Los Angeles, and is now developing a series of children's books.
Zaid and Rishit are both aspiring medical students, still finding out where the work of helping communities breathe better takes them next.
None of it would have been possible without UCLA itself — the university, its staff, and its facilities gave two students the support to turn a shared idea into an organization.
Meet the FoundersFour campuses, one mission.
UCLA Chapter
Screening events and campus advocacy across greater Los Angeles.
Seattle, WAUW Seattle Chapter
Community partnerships throughout the Puget Sound region.
Berkeley, CAUC Berkeley Chapter
Research collaboration and outreach in the East Bay.
Tucson, AZUniversity of Arizona Chapter
Screening access work across Southern Arizona.