Attention, Impulsivity and Regulation (AIR) Our Team | UC Davis MIND Institute

Attention, Impulsivity and Regulation (AIR) Program Research Team

  • Julie Schweitzer, Ph.D.
    Director, ADHD Program

    Julie Schweitzer, Ph.D.

    Julie Schweitzer is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and MIND Institute. She directs the Attention, Impulsivity, Regulation (AIR)/ADHD Program UC Davis MIND Institute. Her work is translational in nature where she uses cognitive neuroscience and behavior analytic principles to investigate attention and impulsivity in children and adults in typical development and in ADHD. She is also developing tech-based interventions using virtual reality and game play to improve attention, self-control and academic functioning. She combines fMRI, DTI, eye-tracking, behavioral and clinical measures in her work. She has been awarded several grants from NIH and other federal agencies for work in ADHD, autism and substance use disorders. Dr. Schweitzer is active in training translational scientists across UC Davis Health and is the Director of the Clinical and Translational TL1 Postdoctoral Training grant, a member of the CTSC Kitchen Cabinet,  Associate Director of the Mentored Clinical Research Training Program and is the Director of the UC Davis Schools of Health Mentoring Academy.

  • J. Faye Dixon, Ph.D.
    Clinic Director, ADHD Program

    J. Faye Dixon, Ph.D.

    Dr. Dixon is a licensed clinical psychologist with 30 years of experience in clinical work and research in child psychopathology; specifically the areas of depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, and learning differences in children. Dr. Dixon joined Dr. Julie Schweitzer's ADHD Program at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine in 2008. Currently, she serves as a diagnostic and assessment consultant for the MINT (Mapping Impulsivity's Neurodevelopmental Trajectory), DelTA (Delay Tolerance Application), and VRAM (Virtual Reality ADHD Management) studies.

    In addition, Dr. Dixon is the director of clinical management and community outreach for the AIR Lab and coordinates the ADHD Parent Education Group. She is a member of the UC Davis Medical Center Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Volunteer Clinical Faculty). She also has spent many years educating and training psychology graduate students, interns, and post-doctoral fellows as well as medical students, residents, and child psychiatry fellows.

  • Jared Borden, M.A.
    Research Coordinator

    Jared Borden, M.A.

    Jared Borden is the Research Coordinator for the Mapping Impulsivity's Neurodevelopmental Trajectory (MINT) study in the Attention, Impulsivity, and Regulation (AIR) Laboratory. He received a Bachelor's degrees in Psychology and Physics from Colgate University and Master's degree in Clinical Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University.

  • Linda Chen, B.S.
    Research Coordinator

    Linda Chen, B.S.

    Linda Chen received her Bachelor's of Science and Art in Psychology and Communication from UC Davis. She started out at the AIR Lab volunteering as a research assistant and started working as a research study coordinator for the lab after she graduated in 2019. She mainly works on recruitment for the MINT and VRAM Study, data management, and acting as a safety monitor/operator for fMRI scans amongst other tasks for the lab.

  • Agnieszka Mlodnicka, Ph.D.

    Agnieszka Mlodnicka, Ph.D.

    Agnieszka Mlodnicka, Ph.D., received Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Biology and minor in Chemistry from Texas A&M University. She received research training as a research assistant in Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine. Agnieszka received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Neuropsychology from City University of New York-Graduate Center. Her clinical neuropsychological training included externships at Mount Sinai Center for Cognitive Health, New York University Child Study Center, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She completed a yearlong internship at Wake Forest School of Medicine with training in pediatric neuropsychology, pediatric psychology, and child and adolescent behavioral inpatient therapy. Her dissertation research explored the impact of neurodevelopmental genes and environmental risk factors on the trajectory of hyperactive and inattentive symptoms from early preschool age to early adolescence. She is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at UC Davis MIND Institute, where she is responsible for assessments and research associated with the Mapping Impulsivity's Neurodevelopmental Trajectory (MINT) study in the Attention, Impulsivity, and Regulation (AIR) Laboratory, and Revisit Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and Environment (ReCHARGE)/ Environmental Influences of Children’s Health Outcomes (ECHO) study.

  • Prerona Mukherjee, Ph.D.

    Prerona Mukherjee, Ph.D.

    Prerona Mukherjee, Ph.D., completed her Masters in Cognitive Science from the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She also obtained a Ph.D. from the School of Medicine at the same University, focusing on models of emotion and information processing networks in Schizophrenia. She has a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science from the University of Pune, India and has also worked extensively in the software industry.

    Her research is focused on interactions between emotion & cognition and their relationship to self-control and attentional control in individuals with different diagnosis (such as ADHD, Schizophrenia, etc). She is particularly interested in functional outcomes (such as academic achievement) and resilience, as well as helping to optimize these using novel interventions such as smart-phone and virtual reality based applications. She has previously studied emotion-cognition interactions in individuals with diagnoses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and is currently focused on extending this research to individuals with ADHD.

    Apart from research, she also likes to be involved in outreach and volunteer activities related to mental health.

Our Collaborators

University of California, Davis Collaborators

Deborah Bennett, Ph.D., UC Davis - UC Davis Center for Health and the Environment

Joy Geng, Ph.D., UC Davis - Center for Mind and Brain

Amanda Guyer, Ph.D., UC Davis - Human Experiences and Affective Development Lab

Ana-Maria Iosif, Ph.D., UC Davis - Division of Biostatistics

Peter Mundy, Ph.D., UC Davis - UC Davis MIND Institute

Marjorie Solomon, Ph.D., UC Davis - Solomon Lab, UC Davis MIND Institute

Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Ph.D., UC Davis - UC Davis MIND Institute, UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center

Outside Collaborators

Catherine Fassbender, Ph.D. - Department of Psychology, DCU Glasnevin Campus

Stephen Hinshaw, Ph.D. - Department of Psychology, UC Berkeley

Sam McClure, Ph.D. - Department of Psychology, Arizona State University

Murat Pakyurek, MD, Department of Psychiatry

Wouter van den Bos, Ph.D. - Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany, University of Amsterdam