Adriana Galván, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Adriana Galván, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology and faculty member of the Brain Research Institute at UCLA. She is also the Director of the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory and an executive member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at UCLA. The overall goal of her laboratory is to understand adolescent behavior by using neuroimaging methods to study the changing adolescent brain. Specifically, she examines the role of stress, sleep habits, puberty, and social relationships on adolescent risk-taking and decision making. Her work has been disseminated broadly in academic journals including The Journal of Neuroscience, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Neuron and funded by the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, The Jacobs Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience. Her research has been featured in several media outlets, in a TEDx talk on the adolescent brain and cited in U.S. Supreme Court cases regarding juvenile justice (Graham v. Florida, 2010; Miller v. Alabama, 2012). Dr. Galván received her B.A in Neuroscience from Barnard College, Columbia University (2001) and her Ph.D. from Cornell Medical School (2006). She conducted her postdoctoral research fellowship at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior. She is the recipient of the American Psychological Association Boyd McCandless Young Scholar Award, the Jacobs Foundation Young Scholar Award, a Network Scholar Award of The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, and the William T. Grant Foundation Scholar Award.
Paola Odriozola, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar
Dr. Paola Odriozola is a Postdoctoral Scholar at UCLA in the Developmental Neuroscience Lab directed by Dr. Adriana Galván. Dr. Odriozola completed her B.A. in Psychology at the University of California Berkeley in 2013 and received her Ph.D. in Psychology with a Neuroscience concentration from Yale University in 2022. Broadly, Dr. Odriozola’s program of research centers on neurodevelopment, with a focus on the neural bases of emotion regulation in children and adolescents and how disrupted neurodevelopmental processes and environmental factors (e.g., trauma, immigration, caregiver separation, family, culture) contribute to anxiety and stress-related disorders across development.
Jasmine Hernández, B.A.
Graduate Student
Jasmine is a Developmental Psychology PhD student at UCLA in the labs of Drs. Adriana Galván and Andrew Fuligni. She graduated from UCLA in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology. Prior to grad school, she was a research coordinator in Dr. BJ Casey’s Fundamentals of the Adolescent Brain Lab at Yale University, where she worked on the ABCD Study. Her research focuses on how positive human behaviors, such as prosociality, develop during the period of adolescence and how the adolescent brain and environment (e.g., family, peers, culture) support these positive behaviors and well-being, particularly among ethnically diverse youth.
Namita Tanya Padgaonkar, B.A.
Graduate Student
Tanya graduated from UC Berkeley in 2015 with B.A.s in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Public Health. She is now a neuroscience PhD student in the labs of Drs. Adriana Galván and Mirella Dapretto. She is interested in the functional and structural development of the brain, and how that relates to emotional functioning in children and adolescents. By learning more about these developmental processes, she hopes to better understand neurotypical development and what factors might contribute to and protect from the development of mood and anxiety disorders in subclinical populations.
ALUMNI
(more recent departures listed first)
Amanda Baker, Ph.D. – Former graduate student
Currently a postdoc at Florida International University
Namita Tanya Padgaonkar, Ph.D. – Former graduate student
Currently a researcher at American Institutes for Research
Jessica Uy, Ph.D. – Former graduate student
Currently a postdoc at UCLA
Sarah Tashjian, J.D., Ph.D. – Former graduate student
Currently a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the University of Melbourne
Natalia Orendain, MPH, Ph.D. – Former graduate student
Currently a data scientist at UC San Francisco
Daniela Sarmiento – Former undergraduate research assistant
Jason Muljadi – Former undergraduate research assistant
Emily Pham – Former undergraduate research assistant
Jordan Mullins- Former research assistant
Currently a graduate student at UC Riverside
Rachel Storer- Former Lab Manager
Currently a graduate student at Bryn Mawr College
Camille Johnston- Former research assistant
Currently a graduate student at Temple University
Jennifer Shintaku- Former undergraduate research assistant
Aya McGlothlin- Former undergraduate research assistant
Dan Zhu- Former undergraduate research assistant
Sam Swanson, PhD. – Former Post Doctoral Student
Dominic Tran – Former undergraduate research assistant
Kayla Oakley – Former Lab Manager
Currently a post-bacc at University of Ohio
Diane Goldenberg, Ph.D. – Former graduate student
Currently a postdoc at the University of Southern California
Nadia Hassan – Former undergraduate research assistant
Steven Soltani – Former undergraduate research assistant
Aboudeh Almallouhi – Former undergraduate research assistant
Laura Rosales – Former undergraduate research assistant
Nina Mokhtarzada – Former undergraduate research assistant
Crystal Rivera – Former undergraduate research assistant
Kaitlyn S. Breiner – Former graduate student
Currently a postdoc with Dr. George Slavich at UCLA
Perri Katzman – Former research assistant
Currently a graduate student at NYU
César Hernández – Former undergraduate research assistant
Abby Loi – Former undergraduate research assistant
Marnee McClellan – Former undergraduate research assistant
Jessica Hernandez – Former undergraduate research assistant
Kathy Do – Former lab manager
Kathy is pursuing a Ph.D. in developmental psychology
at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign with Eva Telzer.
Jennifer Grijalva – Former undergraduate research assistant
Thomas Liu – Former undergraduate research assistant
Alexandra Sherman – former research assistant
Currently a graduate student at SFSU
Diana Guzman – Former undergraduate research assistant
Stephanie Tuncel – Former undergraduate research assistant
Currently a behavioral specialist at TOTAL Programs
Emily Barkley-Levenson, Ph.D. – Former graduate student
Currently an Assistant Professor at Hofstra University
Elliott Gomez – Former undergraduate research assistant
Currently teaching English abroad in Spain
Elica Rahdar, Ph.D. – Former postdoctoral fellow
Currently COO and Head of Research at 3TEN8
Nancy Gomez – Former undergraduate research assistant
Currently a Program Representative at the UCLA Latin American Institute
Brian Delpasand – Former undergraduate research assistant
Currently a medical student at Temple University
Eva Telzer, Ph.D. – Former graduate student
Currently an Assistant Professor at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Kristine McGlennen – Former lab manager
Currently a Registered Nurse, Critical Care Immersion Program at Regions Hospital, St. Paul, MN
Linda van Leijenhorst, Ph.D. – Former postdoctoral fellow
Currently an Assistant Professor at Leiden University
Marissa Sharif – Former undergraduate research assistant
Adriana Campos – Former undergraduate research assistant
Katherine Harmon – Former undergraduate research assistant