Nastassia Hajal, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow at the Nathanson Family Resilience Center in the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles. She earned her doctorate in clinical psychology, with a minor in developmental psychology, from Pennsylvania State University in 2014.
While completing her graduate studies, she worked with families with children struggling with a variety of behavioral and emotional issues and was involved in research on early childhood emotional development and parenting. She completed her predoctoral clinical internship at the UCLA Semel Institute, where she specialized in assessment and treatment of children and families facing trauma and chronic stressors.
Her clinical and research interests center around helping families build resilience, with a particular interest in helping parents effectively manage their own feelings so they can best support their children.