Amanda C. Gulsrud, PhD

Health Sciences Associate Professor
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
- 760 Westwood Plaza, Room 68-237C
- Email: AGulsrud@mednet.ucla.edu
- Website
- Pubmed
biography
Dr. Amanda Gulsrud is a Health Sciences Associate Professor in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in autism and the development of behavioral interventions across the lifespan. She is the Clinical Director of the multidisciplinary UCLA Child and Adult Neurodevelopmental (CAN) Clinic, which focuses on the evaluation and treatment of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) across the lifespan. Dr. Gulsrud’s research focuses on the early identification and treatment of infants and toddlers with ASD and related neurodevelopmental disorders utilizing the JASPER intervention, a naturalistic developmental behavioral approach developed at UCLA. In the UCLA Autism Center of Excellence, she is a co-investigator examining the earliest risk markers and intervention approaches for 12-36 month old infants and toddlers with ASD. She also co-leads the Autism Intervention Research – Behavioral Health Network, which aims to address the gap in identification and service for low-resource families of those affected with ASD. Dr. Gulsrud leads UCLA’s participation in the SPARK study, a Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative to build the largest autism genetic research cohort in the United States. Recently, Dr. Gulsrud and her colleagues launched the UCLA College to Career program, a post-secondary support services program for young adults with ASD, and in 2019, she was awarded an Autism Speaks Adult Transition grant to test the effectiveness of the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS©) adapted to target job-related social skills for post-secondary students with ASD.
Education
- 2002 – UCLA, B.A. in Psychology and History,
- 2007 – UCLA, Ph.D. in Psychological Studies in Education
- 2011 – UCLA, Postdoctoral Fellow, Division of Child Psychiatry
Research & clinical interests
- Neurodevelopmental disorders
- Early detection of children at-risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
- Targeted social-communication intervention (JASPER) for children with ASD
- College transition support programs for young adults with ASD
- Community partnered research and dissemination
- Increasing access to empirically supported practices in low resource and ethnically diverse communities
Roles within the division/Fellowship
- Clinical Director, Child and Adult Neurodevelopmental (CAN) Clinic
- Executive member, Center for Autism Research and Treatment (CART)
- Supervisor, Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (AND) Track, Child Psychology Intern Program
- Director, CAN Research, Education, Awareness, and Community Help (REACH) Training Program
- Director, UCLA College to Career Program