Every year, the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution honors psychologists who have made distinguished theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in psychology. UCLA associate professor of psychology and faculty member of the Brain Research Institute Adriana Galván will receive that honor for 2016 due to her research in the area of developmental psychology.
Galván’s research focuses on adolescent brain development, and her work examines how changes in brain maturation during adolescence relate to adolescent behavior and decision-making. Currently, her lab’s research projects address the role of social influence and peer pressure on decision-making and neural activity in developing children and adolescents. She also examines the role of stress, sleep habits, puberty and social relationships and their effects on adolescent risk-taking and decision making.
Galván is also the recipient of the American Psychological Association Boyd McCandless Young Scholar Award, the Jacobs Foundation Young Scholar Award, a Network Scholar Award of The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience and the William T. Grant Foundation Scholar Award.
