Nastassia Hajal, Ph.D.

Dr. Hajal received her PhD in Child Clinical Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University. She completed her pre-doctoral clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine & Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, with an emphasis on the prevention and treatment of child and family traumatic stress.

She is currently a clinical researcher and attending psychologist in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Her primary interests are in parenting and young children’s emotional development in the context of stress, trauma, and developmental challenges. Her research, housed within the Nathanson Family Resilience Center, focuses on parent and family processes that hinder or promote child resilience in the face of stress. She is also involved in translation of these basic science findings to inform interventions for children and families. She has a particular interest in studying parental emotional processes using novel methodology, including intensive and ecologically valid techniques (such as experience sampling methodology) and affective neuroscience (such as EEG).

Dr. Hajal is a licensed clinical psychologist who supervises clinical psychology and child psychiatry trainees in two UCLA clinics: the PEERS for Preschoolers Program, which provides parent-assisted social skills training for preschool-aged children with developmental disabilities and social challenges, and the Family STAR (Stress, Trauma, and Resilience) Clinic, which focuses on the prevention and treatment of traumatic stress in children ages 0-18 and their families.