The Post-Doctoral Fellowship Program in Neuropsychology aims to prepare the next generation of scientist-practitioners for careers in academic research and clinical applications within the specialty area of neuropsychology. The program achieves its goals through training in a series of tracks, including both Academic/Research and Clinician/Educator emphases. Tracks with an Academic/Research emphasis are designed to prepare applicants for academic careers in teaching and clinical research, and tracks with Clinician/Educator emphases are designed to prepare applicants for private or hospital-based practice providing neuropsychological services and advanced training in clinical neuropsychology. All Fellows, regardless of track, will receive broad training and experience in both research and clinical practice. The difference between tracks is their allocation of major rotation and elective time. All tracks individually tailor the Fellow's training program to achieve these goals in light of the Fellow's prior competencies and experiences.
We currently have 11 fellows participating in 8 tracks. For recruitment in 2016, we anticipate openings in the following tracks: Clinical Neuropsychology Track (General) [1]; Clinical Neuropsychology Track (Child) [1]; Clinical Neuropsychology Track (Geropsychology) [1]; HIV/AIDS Clinical Research Track [2]; Clinical Neuropsychology of Stress & Trauma Track [1]. Additional fellows may be admitted into the Neuropsychology Research Track with funding independent of these offerings.
Other programs
The Division of Medical Psychology-Neuropsychology offers internship and externship programs, in addition to the program as described above; UCLA also supports a wide diversity of training programs in disciplines highly relevant to psychology and neuroscience. Please be sure to look for offerings through other departments and programs in the David Geffen School of Medicine, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA Brain Research Institute, and the UCLA Department of Psychology.
Postdoctoral Fellowships Psychology Training Programs
The NeuroImaging Training Program (NITP) at UCLA was created in September of 2006, under the aegis of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, with funding from the National Institutes of Health. It is premised on the view that the scientific leaders of tomorrow are those who have the ability to create the tools they need to make the discoveries they seek.
Students in the NITP generally will complete a year of graduate training in the Neurosciences, including fundamentals of Neuroanatomy, Systems Neuroscience, Neurophysiology and/or Cognitive Neuroscience. Their second year of graduate training will be an intensive program in the tools of neuroimaging, including acquisition, data processing, analysis and experimental design.
To enter the program students must first apply and be admitted into one of the established neuroscience programs at UCLA, principally the:
As described in more detail in the Curriculum Summary , the NITP adds additional coursework in the first year and requires a second year of imaging-specific classwork.
Brain imaging Postdoctoral Fellowships
This program for predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees, directed by Dr. Marie-Françoise Chesselet, draws on the unique strength of a group of training faculty at UCLA to train young investigators in the basic aspects of neural repair. Recent years have seen tremendous progress in the understanding of the mechanisms of neuronal death and neural plasticity, leading to new perspectives for neural repair in the central nervous system. This program trains investigators to meet the challenges of the field in the next century. The program enrolls postdoctoral fellows and outstanding graduate students from the Interdepartmental Graduate Program for Neuroscience and other graduate programs at UCLA. The curriculum for predoctoral trainees in the Interdepartmental Graduate Program for Neuroscience includes training in broad areas of cellular, molecular and system neuroscience, specialized courses in neural repair, and exposure to relevant clinical situations.
Students with a primary interest in neural repair are selected for support at the end of the second quarter of their first year in the program. Students are exposed to interactions with a variety of faculty and students investigating the nervous system from many perspectives, both basic and clinical. These interactions occur in courses, seminars, activities organized by postdoctoral fellows or students, and the annual neuroscience student retreat.
Pre and Post-doctoral positions for training in the field of Neural Repair are available for a start date each year between July 1st and June 30th. Appointments will be made for one year only, with possibility of competitive renewal for a second year.
Postdoctoral Fellowships
This program for postdoctoral trainees, directed by Dr. Tom O'Dell, seeks to expose students to the fundamental problems in neurobiology and then to give them an intensive interdisciplinary training in modern research techniques.
Research interests of the training supervisors include membrane biophysics, cellular electrophysiology, molecular neurobiology, developmental neurobiology, intercellular interactions, sensory physiology, and central nervous processing. The program is designed to be flexible, exposing trainees to many different aspects of neurobiology while providing maximal opportunity to pursue a particular research interest. A thorough curriculum of basic science and introductory and specialized neurobiology courses is available, as are specialized lecture and technique courses in a wide variety of related disciplines.
The Administration and Training Core of the UCLA Center for Neurocognition and Emotion in Schizophrenia serves the daily administrative needs of the Center. This Core involves Dr. Nuechterlein as Center PI, four other UCLA faculty members who as Center Co-PIs (Drs. Asarnow, Cannon, Green, and Yee-Bradbury), and a full-time administrative analyst (Fe Asuan). Dr. Nuechterlein is ultimately responsible for the direction, administration, and fiscal management of the Center. Drs. Asarnow, Cannon, Green, and Yee-Bradbury play key administrative roles in the Center, aiding Dr. Nuechterlein in overall coordination activities and the major administrative and management tasks that require faculty involvement.
These faculty members also coordinate the research career development activities of the Center, including aiding in the recruitment of appropriate trainees for an existing NIMH-supported Training Grant, "Psychological Research on Schizophrenic Conditions."
The pre-doctoral and post-doctoral trainees supported by these Training Grants (PI: K. Nuechterlein) are encouraged to pursue translational behavioral research through affiliation with this Center.
Psychosis Postdoctoral Fellowships
The primary objective of the HIV/AIDS track is to offer state-of-the-art training in clinical research neuropsychology for highly qualified clinical psychologists with strong scientist-practitioner interests in specific issues related to people with HIV/AIDS. We seek to provide Fellows with systematic didactic, experiential and research training in the neuropsychology of HIV-1 infection. This training includes a core knowledge base in neuroscience, neuropsychiatry and clinical neuropsychological practice, especially in relation to HIV-1 infection. Fellows have the unique opportunity to link convergent scientific methodologies by investigating the relationships between neurocognitive dysfunction, functional neuroimaging, neuropsychiatry, psychosocial issues, and medication adherence. This training program's interdisciplinary approach allows the fellows to develop the clinical research skills required to understand brain-behavior relationships and neuropsychiatric issues in HIV disease.
http://www.apa.org/pi/aids/postdoc.html
The training program in Neuroendocrinology of Reproduction is for both predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees, and has been funded continuously since 1980. This program represents the educational activities of a group of twelve faculty laboratories comprising the Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology (LNE) of the Brain Research Institute.
The activities of the LNE include graduate and undergraduate courses in neuroendocrinology, the weekly brown-bag seminar on current topics in neuroendocrinology, exchange of research ideas and methods among member laboratories, research opportunities for students at all levels, and the annual Charles Sawyer lectureship in neuroendocrinology. Research of the faculty spans all analytical levels in the field of neuroscience, from the molecular to the behavioral. Research interests include sex determination and sexual differentiation, hormonal regulation of neural function, gender differences in disease, cellular and molecular analysis of neural development, neural regulation of gonadal and adrenal function, glial neurobiology, stress, aging, neuroendocrine immunology, growth factors and cytokines, and genetic approaches.
Although the main focus is on basic research in neuroendocrinology, some faculty are also involved in direct analysis of human disease and clinical trials to develop new neuroendocrine therapies.
The current Program Director is Dr. Arthur P. Arnold.
