San Diego Chancellor’s Society Event

Under Construction: Understanding the Teenage Brain
During adolescence, the brain is primed to explore the world, seek out new friendships and romantic partners, and pursue independence from caregivers. Exactly how does this happen, and why? Dr. Galván will share her research on the adolescent brain and describe the neurodevelopmental changes that, when coupled with raging hormones, produce the emotional, passionate and inspiring individuals that characterize the teenage years. She will also discuss how her research has informed public policy in the domains of teenage driving, teenage sleep and juvenile justice.

About Dr. Galván
Adriana Galván, Ph.D. is an Associate 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.