Our Team

Natalia Ramos, MD, MPH

(she/her/ella)
Medical Director
UCLA Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences

Dr. Ramos is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine and a board-certified Child, Adolescent, and Adult Psychiatrist. She oversees clinical care and training in LGBTQ-affirming and sensitive mental health practices in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Ramos also serves as Medical Director for the UCLA Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Clinic and the Child Psychiatry Consultation Liaison Service at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center. She is bilingual in English/Spanish.

Dr. Ramos has extensive experience working with LGBTQ populations in clinical, advocacy, and population research settings. In addition to her clinical work at UCLA, Dr. Ramos is actively involved in teaching and scholarly work both locally and nationally. Her research on strength-based group and family interventions is currently funded by the NIDA/AACAP Physician Scientist Program in Substance Use K12 Award. Outside of UCLA, Dr. Ramos serves as Co-Chair for the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry's committee on gender and sexuality and also serves on the board of APLA Health.

Dr. Ramos holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the Harvard School of Public Health, where she worked with a team of national researchers at the Fenway Institute's Center for Population Research. She completed her undergraduate education at Stanford University and received her Medical Degree from USC's Keck School of Medicine, before completing her residency and fellowship training at UCLA.

Elizabeth Ollen, PhD, MA

(she/her/hers)
Clinical Director
UCLA Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences

Dr. Ollen is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She has been involved in the program development for the UCLA EMPWR Program since it was established in 2017. Dr. Ollen has extensive experience working with LGBTQ youth and their families, including youth exploring/questioning gender identity and/or sexual orientation. She practices from the Gender Affirmative Model and provides guidance and support to families around healthy identity development. She is also involved in research and development of therapeutic interventions to foster resiliency among LGBTQ adolescents and their families.

Dr. Ollen has a broad range of generalist experience using evidence-based treatment for children and adolescents with disruptive, mood, and anxiety disorders in community mental health, hospital-based outpatient, and inpatient settings. She is extensively trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and exposure-based therapies, and utilizes third wave CBT interventions including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Dr. Ollen's primary specialization is in treating the psychological sequelae of both acute and complex developmental trauma, with an expertise in LGBTQ youth. She is trained in multiple trauma interventions, including Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy, and Integrated Treatment for Complex Trauma in Adolescents (ITCT-A). She also has a background in couple and family therapies (Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy, Structural Family Therapy, and Families Over Coming Under Stress).

Dr. Ollen earned her MA and PhD in clinical psychology from Clark University. She also holds a second master's degree in Human Development from Harvard University. She completed her pre and postdoctoral training at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior through the Nathanson Family Resilience Center. Dr. Ollen is actively involved in professional leadership positions through the American Psychological Association (APA). She currently sits on the Executive Committee of Division 44 (Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity) and also serves on the APA Task Force for revising the clinical guidelines for lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients.

Laura Patricia Minero, PhD

(she/her/ella)

Dr. Minero is the second-year LGBTQ Youth Trauma, Resilience and Community Education Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Division of Population Behavioral Health. She provides LGBTQ-affirming care to youth, young adults, and their families and also supervises advanced trainees on the provision of clinical care through the EMPWR program. She is bilingual in English/Spanish.

Dr. Minero has experience working with LGBTQ, Latinx, and immigrant populations in clinical, advocacy, supervisory and teaching settings. As a social justice researcher, Dr. Minero examines how policy impacts the lived experiences of undocumented immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities to identify how to better-serve these populations through more inclusive implementation of policy and distribution of services. Dr. Minero worked on national, consensus scientific studies that were utilized to influence and inform policy as a 2019 Christine Mirzayan Science Policy and Technology Fellow with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Her research on undocumented and asylum-seeking transgender immigrants and their lived experience at the intersection of gender identity, race, citizenship status, and mental health has been supported by Ford Foundation Predoctoral and Dissertation fellowship awards. Her dissertation which critiqued U.S. Detention and Asylum-seeking processes for incurring trauma and psychological sequala on Latinx, transgender immigrants earned her APA’s Division 44’s (Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity) 2020 Transgender People and Gender Diversity Research Award.

Dr. Minero graduated with her PhD in Counseling Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She completed her Predoctoral Clinical Psychology internship at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior Stress, Trauma and Resilience clinic where she provided bilingual and bicultural, trauma-informed, evidenced-based treatment (e.g., FOCUS, CPT) to children, youth, and families experiencing various forms of medical, complex, and interpersonal trauma.

Brianna Joyce Hobson, PsyD

(she/her/hers)

Dr. Hobson is the first-year LGBTQ Youth Trauma, Resilience and Community Education Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Division of Population Behavioral Health. She provides LGBTQ-affirming care to youth, young adults, and their families and also supervises advanced trainees on the provision of clinical care through the EMPWR program.

Dr. Hobson received her PsyD/Med in clinical psychology with specialization in human sexuality from Widener University at the Institute of Graduate Clinical Psychology and Center for Human Sexuality Studies. As a researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), she investigates how medical care impacts transgender and gender expansive youth and their families’ mental health, quality of life, and patient satisfaction. Dr. Hobson’s clinical training is focused in child, adolescent, and family therapy, school psychology and psychoeducational assessment. Dr. Hobson has experience treatment individuals across the lifespan with presenting concerns that include depression, anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, behavior problems, interpersonal problems, difficult transitions, sexuality-related (SOGI, sex dysfunction, etc.) concerns. She uses an integrative approach in therapy, drawing primarily from cognitive and behavioral therapy (CBT), relational psychotherapy, feminist therapy, and trauma-informed care (TIC). Dr. Hobson believes in creative a therapeutic environment that is warm, collaborative, empowering, and validating of the client’s experiences.

Sheryl H. Kataoka, MD, MSHS

(she/her/hers)
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist

Dr. Sheryl H. Kataoka is Professor-in-Residence in the UCLA Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, where she serves as the Training Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship. She completed her Bachelors of Science at UCLA and medical school at George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. She returned to Los Angeles for her Psychiatry Residency training at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center during which she was also an APA Minority Fellow. She completed her child psychiatry fellowship training at the UCLA Semel Institute, and then launched her research career as an APA research fellow in the Program for Minority Research Training in Psychiatry when she examined the psychopathology. She continued her research training as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and received her Masters of Science in Health Services Research from the UCLA School of Public Health. She is an investigator with the UCLA Center for Health Services and Society and the site PI for the National Child Traumatic Stress Networ's Treatment and Services Adaptation Center for Resiliency, Hope and Wellness in Schools.

Audra Langley, PhD

(she/her/hers)
Clinical Psychologist

Dr. Audra Langley is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Dr. Langley is also the Director of Training for the LAUSD/UCLA/RAND Trauma Services Adaptation Center for Schools and serves as Chair of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network School Committee. Dr. Langley is a researcher and clinician who specializes in cognitive behavioral treatment for children and adolescents with PTSD, anxiety, and related disorders, and her work seeks to make evidence-based interventions available to all children in accessible settings, such as schools. Dr. Langley received her Ph.D. in Clinical Child Psychology from Virginia Tech and went on to specialize in CBT with children and adolescents during her internship at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. She was the recipient of an NIMH-funded National Research Service Award to further her postdoctoral research training in the clinical evaluation of evidence-based treatments for childhood anxiety disorders through the UCLA Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Program, where she continues as a faculty member. Dr. Langley has served as investigator, trainer, clinician, and clinical supervisor on several clinic and school-based studies and trials treating ethnically and socioeconomically diverse children and adolescents with PTSD, anxiety, and OCD and has presented and published research papers on her work.

Patricia E. Lester, MD

(she/her/hers)
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist

Dr. Patricia Lester is the Jane and Marc Nathanson Family Professor of Psychiatry, Director of the Division of Population Behavioral Health, and Director of the UCLA Nathanson Family Resilience Center. A board certified child and adolescent psychiatrist, Dr. Lester's work has been dedicated to the development, evaluation, and implementation of family centered prevention and treatment for families facing the impact of military deployments, traumatic events, and parental illness. She co-developed the family-centered preventive intervention FOCUS, which was designed to promote resilience and mitigate stress in families facing adversities such as natural disasters, medical illness, and military wartime deployments. Over the last 8 years, she has led the successful large-scale implementation of FOCUS for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, as well as piloting at Army and Air Force sites. Dr. Lester oversees the on-line FOCUS learning center and evaluation programming, which utilizes web-based technologies to support program implementation at scale. She is well versed in the scientific and programmatic issues facing service members and their families, and serves as an advisor on the needs of military children and families across military, university and non-profit agencies. She co-directs the Welcome Back Veteran's Family Resilience Center, which includes research trials on family centered preventive and treatment models for Veterans and National Guard and their families, as well as community level education and capacity building to enhance resilience in OEF/OIF Veterans. She currently receives support from the Department of Defense, the US Department of Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, the McCormick Foundation, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She has published more than 50 research articles and book chapters on the foregoing topics.

Catherine E. Mogil, PsyD

(she/her/hers)
Clinical Psychologist

Dr. Catherine E. Mogil has spent her career working with children of all developmental stages. She has been involved in several intervention development and translational research projects examining the efficacy of parent-assisted interventions for infants and toddlers in foster care, school-aged children with developmental disabilities, and adolescents with Autism Spectrum and other disorders.

Dr. Mogil is a licensed clinical psychologist and Assistant Clinical Professor at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior in the David Geffen School of Medicine. In addition to her work at the UCLA CARES Center, Dr. Mogil serves as the Director of Training and Intervention Development for the Nathanson Family Resilience Center and the UCLA Division of Population Behavioral Health. She is also the Director of the Family Development Project and the Co-Director of the Child and Family Trauma Service. She is certified in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities.

Jeanne Miranda, PhD

(she/her/hers)
Clinical Psychologist

Dr. Miranda is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Assistant Director of the UCLA Center for Health Services and Society, and Co-Director of the UCLA Youth Stress and Mood (YSAM) Program. Her clinical interests and expertise include depression, suicide prevention, self-injurious behavior, emotion regulation, and caregiver-based interventions. Dr. Miranda serves as a consultant on clinical care and teaching at EMPWR.

Dr. Miranda is also a prolific mental health services researcher who has focused her work on providing mental health care to low-income and minority communities. She holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from University of Kansas and completed post-doctoral training at University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Miranda's major research contributions have been in evaluating the impact of mental health care for ethnic minority communities. She is an investigator in two UCLA centers focusing on improving disparities in health care for ethnic minorities.