Dr. Sheryl Kataoka is Professor Emeritus in the UCLA Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, where she serves as the Associate Program Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship. She completed her Bachelor 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 and completed her Child Psychiatry Fellowship training at the UCLA Semel Institute. She then launched her research career as a fellow in the APA Program for Minority Research Training in Psychiatry and as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, receiving her Master of Science in Health Services Research from the UCLA School of Public Health. Her research has spanned over 20 years focused on prevention of traumatic stress and enhancing resilience in school-based services. Dr. Kataoka has been dedicated to improving the access to and quality of mental health care for underserved childrenand their families, and she was one of the first to document racial disparities in unmet need for child mental health services nationally.
1988 University of California, Los Angeles; Los Angeles, California, B.S.
1993 George Washington University School of Medicine; Washington, D.C., M.D.
1996 Resident in General Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center; Torrance, CA
1998 Fellow in Child Psychiatry, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, Los Angeles, CA
2001 Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, UCLA
2001 University of California School of Public Health, Los Angeles; Los Angeles, California, Masters in Health Services
As a child psychiatrist and health services researcher, Dr. Kataoka has been investigating methods of delivering evidence-based mental health care in schools. Her research has led to a greater understanding of the role of schools in decreasing disparities in mental health care for ethnic minority children and their families.Dr. Kataoka was one of the original investigators to help develop and evaluate the Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools program (CBITS), an evidence-based treatment program for traumatized youth who have been exposed to a wide variety of violence in their community. She has examined how schools can best implement and disseminate evidence-based interventions such as CBITS. She has also examined the role of school basedhealth centers in delivering mental health services. In addition to her work in schools, she has been lead evaluations of county mental health services delivered through the Mental Health Services Act. As part of her work in the DMH-UCLA Prevention Centerof Excellence, Dr. Kataoka has been part of a team creating online educational materials for teachers and school staff on resilience and trauma-informed schools and educational topics related to COVID.
Associate Program Director, UCLA Child and Adolescent Fellowship Program
Faculty, DMH-UCLA Prevention Center of Excellence
Clinical and research mentor
Lectures on topics related to systems of care, school based mental health services, prevention, diversity and culture, careers
