People

Dr. McCracken is the Joseph Campbell Professor of Child Psychiatry and Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the UCLA NPI-Semel Institute (formerly the Neuropsychiatric Institute) in Los Angeles. Dr. McCracken is the principal investigator of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Center, "Translational Research to Enhance Cognitive Control," which aims to develop and test innovative treatments for cognitive defects associated with child psychiatric illness. His other current areas of research include family-genetic studies of childhood disorders and the testing of new pharmacologic treatments for a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders in children, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, obsessive-... more

Jenny Cowen, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and the administrative director of clinical research within the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. For the last 2 decades, Dr. Cowen’s role at UCLA includes oversight and management of clinical research of ADHD, ASD (autism spectrum disorders) and related disorders conducted within the child division at UCLA. Within this role, she is responsible for the execution of all operations involved with clinical research, from inception to publication and everything in-between, while leading a team of researchers at various levels of their careers. Dr. Cowen has focused much of her research, clinical activities and associated publications in the treatment of ADHD and autism, including medication and, more... more

James J. McGough, M.D. is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. McGough graduated from the Duke University School of Medicine in 1986, where he remained for his residency in Psychiatry. He completed a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UCLA and has been a member of the faculty in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry since 1994. He presently serves as director of clinical teaching programs in both Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which are required training venues for child psychiatry residents. Dr. McGough is Chief of Staff of the UCLA Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital and Chair of the UCLA... more

Alex Sturm, M.A. is a graduate student researcher for the Treatment Studies for ADHD, Irritability, and Mood Disorders research group. Alex graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Brain and Cognitive Sciences in 2008. Currently, Alex is a 5th year PhD student at UCLA in Human Development and Psychology, where she obtained her Masters of Arts in Education in 2013. Alex’s research focuses on combining her dual interests in mental health treatment approaches for children and adolescence and statistics. Currently, she is using item response theory to explore treatment differences between several pharmacotherapies for ADHD. Alex is also involved with the thinkSMART program at UCLA as a group facilitator, co-author of the thinkSMART... more