David G. Weissman, PhD

Dr. David G. Weissman is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist and the director of the RAN Lab. David obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California in 2008. He then spent 5 years teaching middle school science in Oakland, California. That experience had a large influence on David’s research interests in the impacts of early life adversity on neurodevelopment and mental health in adolescence. David obtained his PhD in developmental psychology from the University of California, Davis in 2018, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills. David’s program of research focuses in particular on how exposure to violence and other forms of adversity impact the way adolescents experience emotions in their brains, bodies, and minds, with the hope that a better understanding of this will lead to improved treatments and interventions and better mental health outcomes for youth. In addition, with the goal of identifying the most effective means of intervening to improve mental health and reduce mental health disparities, David has conducted pioneering research evaluating the impacts of structural characteristics, such as public policies, on brain development and mental health in adolescence. David’s research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and published in leading journals in the field, including Nature Communications, Child Development, Biological Psychiatry, and Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.