Leanna Hernandez, Ph.D.

Dr. Leanna Hernandez is a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA specializing in psychiatric genetics and developmental neuroscience. Her research examines how genetic variants associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) converge to affect brain and behavioral development during childhood and adolescence. She conducts research focused on identifying genes associated with ASD and related neurodevelopmental disorders through large-scale genome wide association studies (GWAS) and transcriptomic profiling of brain gene expression. Dr. Hernandez's work linking genetic variation to neurodevelopment has won multiple awards including the Richard Todd Award from the International Society for Psychiatric Genetics, NIH Blueprint Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience Award, UCLA CTSI KL2 Translational Science Award, and a Bridge to Independence Award form the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative. She is an active member of the Center for Autism Research and Treatment and serves as Co-Director of the Genomics Core for the Intellectual Disabilities and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at UCLA.