Larissa Del Piero

Larissa Del Piero is a staff research associate on the RAPBI project and is a doctoral candidate in the Clinical Science area of the University of Southern California Psychology Ph.D. program. Larissa’s research explores the impact of significant stressors (e.g., violence exposure) on cognitive processes and emotion regulation. Her masters project examined the relationship between exposure to community violence, psychological distress, and academic performance during middle and high school. In 2010, she received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to study the relationship between violence exposure, cortisol reactivity, and performance on standardized tests of fluid intelligence. She is currently working on her dissertation, which uses functional magnetic resonance imaging and a novel experimental paradigm to explore cognitive control of emotions in youth who have been exposed to family violence. Larissa is hoping to extend this research in the future to examine cognitive and emotional consequences of significant medical stressors (e.g., traumatic brain injury) for children and families. Clinically, Larissa has an extensive background in neuropsychological assessment and is interested in integrating mindfulness and family systems approaches into the treatment of both pediatric and adult populations with cognitive difficulties.