Distinguished Faculty

All courses are taught by California State University, Northridge faculty from the nationally recognized Department of Psychology.

Psychology Department Full-Time Faculty

Gary S. Katz, Ph.D.

Dr. Katz received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 1998 after completing his pre-doctoral clinical internship at the University of Maryland Medical School in the Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. A California licensed psychologist, Dr. Katz teaches the Measurement & Experimental Evaluation of Behavior course in the CSUN BCBA program and teaches courses in statistics, psychological assessment, and clinical psychology. His research interests include psychophysiological aspects of emotion and attention disorders. In addition to his academic work at CSUN, Dr. Katz maintains a private practice in Ventura County working with children, adolescents, and adults with a variety of behavioral, emotional, and learning differences.

Ellie Kazemi, Ph.D., B.C.B.A.

Dr. Kazemi received her Ph.D. from UCLA and is an assistant professor of psychology and the academic director of the BCBA program at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). She teaches courses on applied behavior analysis, learning and behavior, and research methodology. Dr. Kazemi has worked with individuals with disabilities and/or their parents in the past 13 years in various settings. Her experience includes working at Area Board 10, the UCLA Behavior Genetics Clinic, and the Lili Claire Family Resource Center. She is a board certified behavior analyst (BCBA) and has worked extensively with children and adolescents with behavioral and emotional problems, genetic disorders, autism spectrum disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and those with learning disabilities. She serves as a consultant with community behavioral agencies focusing on outcome-based programming, staff training, and professional ethics. Her research interests involve knowledge and needs of ABA staff; cross-cultural differences in parents' perceptions of autism and behavior analysis; effective methods in teaching applied behavior analysis to staff and/or students; parental disciplinary tactics; and factors contributing to co-occurrence of emotional and/or behavioral problems in adolescents with disabilities. Dr. Kazemi continues to publish and present her research with her students at conferences.

Luciana Lagana, Ph.D.

Luciana Lagana is a doctor of psychology from the University of Rome, "La Sapienza", Rome, Italy. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in experimental-cognitive psychology and a respecialization from the Illinois Institute of Technology in clinical psychology-behavioral medicine. She is currently a research collaborator in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and an eight-year associate professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology at California State University, Northridge where she has been conducting research sponsored by the National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health on women's issues as well as adult and geriatric behavioral medicine.

Debra Berry Malmberg, Ph.D., BCBA

Dr. Malmberg received her bachelors degree in psychology from Davidson College and her doctoral degree in developmental psychology from Claremont Graduate University. Her clinical and research interests include research on assessment and behavioral intervention for children with autism and other developmental disorders.

Dr. Malmberg is a board certified behavior analyst (BCBA), and her training includes experience working at the New England Center for Children and the Claremont Autism Center. She has worked extensively with children with autism and related disorders, developing and supervising intervention programming, designing parent education programs, and consulting with school districts and international centers. Dr. Malmberg regularly presents her research at conferences and has published on behavioral interventions with children with autism.

Dee L. Shepherd-Look, Ph.D.

Dr. Dee L. Shepherd-Look received her Ph.D. from UCLA in clinical psychology with sub-specialties in child and adolescent development and in community psychology. Her first interest in psychology as a young graduate student was in the area of autism and developmental disabilities. In the late sixties, she learned DTT from Dr. Ivar Lovaas and was a member of his original team whose members used DTT to treat children with autism and through functional analyses demonstrated its efficacy. Dr. Shepherd-Look is a Professor of Psychology at CSUN where she has been the Director of the Clinical MA program in Psychology since 1998 and teaches in the areas of child/adolescent and adult psychopathology, ethics, applied behavior analysis, micro skills in therapeutic intervention, and parenting skills. She has developed a parent child interaction program used by graduate students to educate parents in the use of ABA techniques to increase desired behaviors and to modify problem behaviors in children with developmental disabilities. Dr. Shepherd-Look supervises graduate students in leading parent training groups and in 'in home visits' designed to provide feedback to parents in the most effective ways to apply these techniques. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and has board certifications in forensic psychology and psychopharmacology. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Shepherd-Look maintains a private practice in Woodland Hills and consults with many agencies in the community on matters related to children, parenting and family functioning. In her consulting work with Foster Family Associations, Dr. Shepherd-Look serves as a behavioral interventionist case manager, supervising functional behavioral assessments and the design and implementation of treatment plans for all clients of Regional Center. She has many years experience working with children/adolescents with numerous different diagnoses who present a variety of issues for parents and with their parents who desperately need skills in helping their children develop.

BCBA Program Part-Time Faculty

Peter Adzhyan, Psy.D., L.E.P.

Dr. Adzhyan has a masters degree in school psychology and a doctorate in educational psychology. He is a licensed educational psychologist and a certified premier behavior intervention case manager (BICM). Dr. Adzhyan is a full-time school psychologist for Los Angeles Unified School District and has nine years of experience working with children and adolescents in various educational settings. He currently works with adolescents with severe behavior disorders within the juvenile justice system. As a behavioral intervention case manager Dr. Adzhyan has conducted functional analysis assessments (FAA), functional behavioral assessments (FBA), developed and implemented behavioral intervention plans for children with autism and behavioral disorders. As part-time faculty at CSUN and Alliant International University, Dr. Adzhyan has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on assessment, single-subject designs, and learning theories.

Fernando Guerro, Ph.D., B.C.B.A.

Dr. Guerrero obtained his BA in psychology in 1995, in Bogota, Colombia. He obtained faculty positions at different undergraduate psychology programs, and worked with normally developed individuals, individuals with brain injury, children and adolescents in foster care, and individuals with developmental disabilities. Dr. Guerrero obtained his Ph.D. in Behavior analysis in 2005 at the University of Nevada, Reno were he continued working on theoretical, basic, and applied behavior analysis through his positions as research assistant and assistant director of off-campus masters programs. After his graduation in 2005 he worked as therapist and clinical program supervisor of behavioral interventions with toddlers, children, and adolescents at a behavioral agency, and as Research and Development Manager at the Center of Autism and Related Disorders (CARD). He is currently a Behavioral Consultant in the Clinical Department at the North Los Angeles County Regional Center. Dr. Guerrero has been adjunct faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno, in the satellite off campus masters programs, and at the University of West Florida and the National University in the BCBA programs.

Stephen Johnson, Ph.D., B.C.B.A.

Dr. Johnson received his Ph.D. from UCLA and is currently the Clinical Director of a non-public agency providing behavioral services for children diagnosed with autism. Dr. Johnson has worked with individuals with disabilities and/or their parents for the past 14 years in various settings. His experience includes working at the Lovaas Institute, the UCLA Autism Evaluation Clinic, and the UCLA Early Childhood Partial Hospitalization Program. He is a board certified behavior analyst (BCBA) and has worked extensively with children and adolescents with behavioral and emotional problems and autism spectrum disorders. He serves as a liaison between several Regional Centers and the LAUSD focusing on program development, staff training, and parent education. His research interests involve effective methods in teaching applied behavior analysis to staff and/or students, cross-cultural differences in parents' perceptions of autism, and factors regarding treatment efficacy.

John G. Youngbauer, Ph.D., MFT., B.C.B.A.

Dr. Youngbauer has worked with persons of all ages with disabilities since 1972. He is a board certified behavior analyst (BCBS) and past chair of the Professional Standards Committee for the California Association for Behavior Analysis.

He has provided behavioral (ABA) training and consultation to public and private schools, daycare, activity, work activity, residential, intermediate care and independent living programs. Dr. Youngbauer is a member of the DDS Task Force on the Autism Treatment Best Practices and a member of the advisory committee for the UCLA Center for Autism Research & Treatment (CART). He works at North Los Angeles County Regional Center (NLACRC), where he supervises all early intensive autism intervention in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita, and Antelope Valleys, and provides consultation, training, and technical support for regional center and community agencies. Aside from his professional involvement with autism, Dr. Youngbauer's youngest brother has autism and is blind. The experiences of his family and brother contributed to his choice of professions and to a commitment to help make things better for people with disabilities and especially for families with children that have autism.

Dr. Youngbauer teaches part-time graduate and undergraduate psychology classes at California State University, Northridge and Los Angeles (Behavior Analysis). He has also served as director of research and as a research professor at the Research and Training Center on Independent Living at the University of Kansas. He is now an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Applied Behavioral Science at the University of Kansas.

The BCBA program at CSUN is a post-master's university-certificate program. BCBA students will earn a CSUN certificate upon completion of the BCBA program, but will not be professionally certified BCBA's until they complete and pass the BCBA certification test through the Behavior Analyst Certification Board: BACB®.