Biography

Sierra is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry. She is passionate about supporting people across the transition to parenthood, especially those navigating extra challenges and vulnerabilities. Sierra provides trauma-informed care to families with infants who have faced medical challenges and works with medical teams to create family-centered hospital environments. She also researches how past experiences and neurobiology may contribute to parenting, and how to support parents with trauma histories. A lifelong violinist, Sierra now happily spends much of her free time performing The Wheels on the Bus for her toddler and his friends. She is leading trauma-informed care workshops for pediatric staff, facilitating workshops on provider wellbeing for genetic counseling program, mentoring trainees and undergraduates, leading efforts to create and disseminate educational materials for UCLA medical providers.

“There are things you can’t reach. But You can reach out to them, and all day long.” – Mary Oliver