Dr. Green is an Assistant Clinical Professor in UCLA's Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. Dr. Green completed a doctorate in Clinical Psychology at UCLA in 2014, and thereafter completed a postdoctoral fellowship focused on pediatric functional neuroimaging methods at UCLA's Brain Mapping Center. Dr. Green has received multiple NIH fellowships and awards to study the neural bases of heterogeneity in Autism Spectrum Disorders, with a focus on sensory over-responsivity. Dr. Green currently has a K08 award from the National Institute of Mental Health to study the neural bases of sensory processing issues and their effect on social functioning in children with autism and children with early life stress. Dr. Green's research integrates neuroimaging, psychophysiological, and behavioral methods to identify individual differences in risk markers and outcomes in high-risk developmental populations. Dr. Green is also a licensed clinical psychologist and works as an autism consultant with UCLA's TIES for Families program for families adopting children from foster care.

Dr. Green’s pilot study, funded by the Friends of Semel grant, builds on her prior research showing that sensory over-responsivity in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is related to an over-active brain response to sensory stimuli as well as reduced thalamocortical modulation in response to sensory stimuli. These results suggest thalamic excitatory/inhibitory imbalance, affecting the thalamic role in integrating, relaying, and inhibiting attention to sensory information. Thus, the current study will use magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to examine how the excitatory/inhibitory balance of the thalamus and somatosensory cortex relates to other brain and behavioral measures of sensory over-responsivity in children with ASD. Results will inform potential psychopharmacological interventions for sensory over-responsivity.