Pooja Patel, PhD

Pooja obtained her B.S. in Biological Sciences and B.S. in Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. She completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at UCLA under the mentorship of Dr. Katherine Karlsgodt, and completed her APA-accredited clinical internship at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services in Inglewood, CA. Pooja joined the Green Lab in 2023 as a Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC) Advanced Fellow. Her doctoral research focused on how reinforcement learning deficits manifest in both early and chronic schizophrenia, and how these deficits compare to those in other severe mental illnesses like bipolar disorder. Building upon her prior work, Pooja’s postdoctoral research focuses on aging-related changes in decision-making and brain dynamics in schizophrenia.