CLAUDIA L. KERNAN Ph.D. CLINICAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST

California License Psy Lic #PSY24731

Dr. Claudia L. Kernan is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in the neuropsychological assessment of children, adolescents, and young adults. She has extensive experience evaluating individuals with a wide range of medical and developmental disorders, including traumatic brain injury and concussions, epilepsy, cancer, prenatal-substance exposure, learning disabilities, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, developmental language disorders, and autism spectrum disorders. Dr. Kernan also has experience assessing cognitive abilities for placement in gifted or enriched educational programs. She provides comprehensive assessment of students' cognitive, academic, and behavioral/emotional functions and identifies neurocognitive strengths and weaknesses for education and/or treatment planning.

Dr. Kernan graduated Phi Beta Kappa , magna cum laude , with a B.A. in anthropology from Princeton University. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UCLA, where she minored in developmental psychology. She completed her predoctoral internship in pediatric neuropsychology at North Shore University Hospital/New York University and her postdoctoral residency in clinical neuropsychology at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Dr. Kernan was also awarded a postdoctoral fellowship in the Career Development Program in Population-Based Cancer Prevention and Control Research at the UCLA School of Public Health, where she gained experience in the neuropsychological evaluation of adult survivors of pediatric brain tumors.

Dr. Kernan is a research psychologist within the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and has published and presented at scientific conferences on the topics of traumatic brain injury, hormones and cognition, childhood schizophrenia, and ethnic identity and multiculturalism in school settings. She currently serves as a co-investigator in a multi-year study funded by NIH that uses novel neuroimaging techniques to understand the course of recovery from pediatric brain injury. In addition, she has received funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to conduct research focusing on the influence of social factors in the course of recovery of children with traumatic brain injury. Dr. Kernan has also developed expertise in the neuropsychological assessment of sports-related concussions. She is actively involved in a study of neurocognitive and pituitary functioning of retired NFL players funded by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment and has conducted neuropsychological assessments of NFL players with multiple concussions. She has also consulted in the development of a multi-disciplinary sports concussion clinic at UCLA, scheduled to open in 2012.