Working with children and families is my passion. I combine my clinical experience with my expertise in brain and child development to inform every aspect of the evaluation process. I provide practical recommendations to help families and young adults obtain effective clinical and educational services.
I earned my Ph.D. from the top-rated UC San Diego/San Diego State University Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology. Neuropsychology was my major area of study in graduate school and I specialized in developmental clinical neuropsychology during my predoctoral internship at the University of Florida.
I have 30 years experience conducting assessments with infants, toddlers, children, adolescents, and young adults. Before starting my own practice, I was a Clinical Neuropsychologist at the Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic at UC San Diego, the Autism Discovery Institute, and the Developmental Evaluation Clinic at Rady Children's Hospital San Diego.
I am a Professor in Pediatrics and an Emeritus Professor in Psychiatry at UC San Diego. I am currently a co-Investigator on three NIH-funded research studies of infants and children and their families. My research program aims to help children by advancing our understanding of brain and cognitive development. I have over 100 publications in scientific journals and serve on the editorial board of three major neuropsychology journals: Child Neuropsychology, The Clinical Neuropsychologist, and Neuropsychology.
As a certified trainer for the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 (ADOS-2) and Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R), I lead professional training workshops across the country.
Throughout my academic career I taught courses for both undergraduate and graduate students in psychological assessment, child neuropsychology, and brain development. I also mentored undergraduate students, Ph.D. students, and postdoctoral fellows in research and clinical practice.
