Faculty and Staff

Clinic Leadership

Director:

John Piacentini, Ph.D., ABPP 

Dr. Piacentini is a board-certified clinical child and adolescent psychologist and Professor in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences.  He directs the UCLA Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Clinic and Tourette Association Center of Excellence which provide diagnostic evaluation and treatment (both therapy and medication) for youth with the above problems.  He also directs the UCLA Center for Child Anxiety Resilience, Education, and Support (CARES; carescenter.ucla.edu) which provides education and programming to parents, teachers, and clinicians about anxiety prevention and management. 
Dr. Piacentini's research focuses on the development and testing of effective treatments for youth OCD, anxiety, tics, and body focused repetitive disorders. He has played a lead role in several major treatment studies for these disorders and has published over 300 scientific papers and chapters and nine books.   
Dr. Piacentini has a long history of child and family advocacy and serves on national Boards for several organizations, including the Anxiety Depression Association of America and the International OCD Foundation. He chairs the Scientific Advisory Board for the TLC Foundation for BFRBs, and co-chairs the same board for the the Tourette Association of America. 

Co-Director:

 Tara S. Peris, Ph.D. 

Julia Revillion Cox, Ph.D., LCP 

Dr. Julia Revillion Cox is the Assistant Clinical Director of the UCLA Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Program and an Assistant Clinical Professor at UCLA. Dr. Cox earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in 2019. 

Clinic Staff

Program Coordinator:

Sophia Barden, B.S. 

Sophie is the Clinical Coordinator for the UCLA Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Program. Sophie earned her bachelor’s degree in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics from UCLA in 2023. She is passionate about bridging clinical care and research to improve outcomes for children and adolescents with OCD, anxiety, and tic disorders. 

Staff Psychiatrist:

Margaret Stuber, MD 

Margaret L. Stuber MD is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, who did her residency and fellowship at UCLA. Her research work has been in posttraumatic stress and seriously medically ill children and adolescents. She has worked as an educator for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network for the past 20 years. She has been involved in curricular development for medical students and continues to focus on interprofessional education with the schools of nursing, dentistry, public health and medicine. Since 2018 she has been the Program Director for the VA-based psychiatry residency at UCLA. 

Staff Psychologist:

Emily Ricketts, Ph.D., LCP 

Dr. Ricketts is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. She is housed in the Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Program. Here, she provides training and supervision to clinical graduate externs; serves as an attending in the outpatient trainee clinic, where she trains and supervises clinical psychology interns and psychiatry fellows in behavior therapy; and treats patients with tic disorders, OCD, body-focused repetitive behavior disorders, and anxiety disorders. 
Dr. Ricketts' research centers on sleep and circadian disturbance and intervention in Tourette's disorder, OC-related disorders (trichotillomania, skin picking disorder), and associated psychopathology (anxiety, ADHD). She has received grant funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Tourette Association of America, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Ongoing and recent grant-funded projects center on circadian rhythms (dim light melatonin onset) and sleep (actigraphy, home polysomnography), and novel wearable interventions (light therapy, frontal cerebral thermal therapy) in youth and adults with Tourette's disorder. Dr. Ricketts maintains research collaborations with the UCLA Laboratory of Circadian and Sleep Medicine and UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative. Her emerging research interests span behavior therapy and light therapy for adolescents with delayed circadian timing in clinical populations, the impact of light exposure and light sensitivity on sleep and circadian disruption and related markers of health, and the therapeutic potential of cannabis for insomnia. 

Staff Psychologist:

Sisi Guo, P.hD., LCP 

Dr. Guo is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine and the Director of the Pediatric OCD Intensive Outpatient Program at the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital. In addition, she is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychology at UCLA. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from UCLA and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Dr. Guo's clinical and research interests are in the training and delivery of evidence-based treatments for youth and families, with a particular focus on anxiety and OCD-related disorders.  

Staff Psychologist:

Michael Treanor, Ph.D., LCP 

Dr. Treanor (He/Him) is currently an Attending with the UCLA Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Program. He completed an APA approved internship at the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Behavioral Sciences Division, at the Boston VA and a National Institute of Mental Health T32 postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA. His research at UCLA examines methods for improving exposure therapy. In addition to his research and patient care, he actively supervises and trains other mental health professionals in cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure therapy. 

Staff Psychologist:

Stephanie Violante, Ph.D., LCP 

Dr. Violante is an Attending Clinical Psychologist with the UCLA Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Program and the Center for Child Anxiety, Resilience, Education and Support (CARES). She completed her predoctoral internship in the General Child Track at the UCLA Semel Institute and her postdoctoral fellowship with the UCLA Child, OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Program and CARES Center. Her clinical interests include evidence-based interventions for youth with anxiety, OCD, tic disorders, and BFRBs. She also has experience in working with youth coping with acute or chronic illness. Dr. Violante's research interests include the implementation and dissemination of evidence-based treatments for youth, program development, and measure development.