Our Team

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Medical Director
UCLA Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences

Dr. Ramos is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a board-certified child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist. She oversees LGBTQ+ clinical care and training in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Ramos also serves as medical director for the UCLA Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Clinic and the Child Psychiatry Consultation Liaison Service at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center. She is bilingual in English and Spanish.

Dr. Ramos has extensive experience working with LGBTQ+ populations in clinical, advocacy and population research settings. In addition to her clinical work at UCLA Health, Dr. Ramos is actively involved in teaching and scholarly work focused on trauma recovery, depression and substance use prevention both locally and nationally. Her research focuses on strength-based group and family interventions. Outside of UCLA, Dr. Ramos serves as co-chair for the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry's committee on gender and sexuality and also serves on the board of APLA Health.

Dr. Ramos holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the Harvard School of Public Health, where she worked with a team of national researchers at the Fenway Institute's Center for Population Research. She completed her undergraduate education at Stanford University and received her medical degree from USC's Keck School of Medicine, before completing her residency and fellowship training at UCLA.

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Clinical Director
UCLA Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences

Dr. Tabuenca is a licensed clinical psychologist at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. She completed her PhD in clinical psychology at Loma Linda University, followed by a doctoral internship and post-doctoral fellowship in pediatric psychology at Yale University’s Child Study Center. Dr. Tabuenca serves as clinical director of the UCLA EMPWR Program for LGBTQ+ mental health. She also conducts training and clinical supervision in the UCLA Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Clinic. She is extensively trained in several evidence-based interventions, including cognitive and behavioral therapies for anxiety disorders (CBT), trauma symptoms (TF-CBT), and behavioral parent training (BPT). She also has expertise in exposure and habit reversal therapies including exposure and response prevention (ERP) for OCD and comprehensive behavioral intervention for tics (CBIT).

Dr. Tabuenca specializes in adapting evidence-based practices to provide tailored support for children and youth navigating unique circumstances, including complex experiences with minority stress, identity development, neurodiversity, medical illness and trauma. Her work has also focused on implementing and teaching evidence-based models for LGBTQ+-sensitive care, with an emphasis on family-focused interventions that promote resilience through acceptance and cohesion. As a Spanish and English speaking bilingual clinician, Dr. Tabuenca has also adapted interventions to meet diverse cultural needs and supported training to promote other bilingual clinicians. Dr. Tabuenca’s published work relates to interventions with gender diverse youth in pediatric medical settings, interventions for suicide prevention and supportive parenting behaviors for diverse identities and special needs. She presented on family-focused interventions for gender health in primary care settings at the National Conference for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Prior to coming to UCLA, she held consecutive faculty positions at Stanford University and the University of Southern California. Her previous role at Stanford University included the site training director of child and adolescent inpatient psychiatry and attending psychologist in pediatric endocrinology. She later led the establishment of behavioral interventions for tics, anxiety and OCD within the Neurological Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

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Attending Psychologist, EMPWR Program
Clinical Psychologist, Division of Population Behavioral Health

Dr. Hisaka is a licensed clinical psychologist at the UCLA Semel Institute. She has been involved with UCLA EMPWR Program since 2020. Dr. Hisaka has experience working with LGBTQ+ youth and their families, including youth exploring/questioning gender identity or sexual orientation. She practices from the gender affirmative model and guides treatment with the goals to provide both support to families and foster healthy identity development.

Additionally, Dr. Hisaka is involved with the Stress, Trauma and Resilience (STAR) Clinic where she developed the program for the Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) Clinic. She continues to pursue her work specializing in treatment of youth and families who have experienced complex trauma and other stressors proficient in both trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) and PCIT treating young children and their families from a behavioral model. Currently, Dr. Hisaka is certified in PCIT, stands as UCLA’s in-house trainer for PCIT, and runs the PCIT Clinic for families who experience various behavioral presentations resulting from traumatic events and conduct-related and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Dr. Hisaka has a double master's in clinical psychology from both Pepperdine University and Alliant University. Following her master's, she earned her doctorate in clinical psychology from Alliant University/California School of Professional Psychology. Prior to Dr. Hisaka’s postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA, she completed her predoctoral clinical internship at UC Davis Children’s Hospital where she specialized in complex childhood trauma treatment and child-welfare evaluations working with underserved, foster-care and adopted youth populations. Dr. Hisaka completed her two-year postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA’s Stress, Trauma, & Resilience Clinic, serving as the clinic’s primary PCIT interventionist.

Outside of Dr. Hisaka’s work at UCLA, she serves as adjunct faculty, teaching both undergraduate and graduate education at Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP) and Loyola Marymount University. Additionally, she continues to contribute to research in her field focusing on interests related to children with complex trauma histories, with an emphasis on pediatric chronic medical trauma and the effects on family dynamics, in addition to the effects of PCIT intervention strategies among underserved populations and medically fragile youth.

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Attending Psychiatrist
UCLA Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences

Dr. Galeano joined the Health Sciences clinical faculty in the Department of Psychiatry after completing his residency training as one of the UCLA Semel Institute’s chief residents. Before moving to LA, Dr. Galeano spent nearly a decade in New York City, completing his undergraduate studies in anthropology at Columbia University and earning his medical degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. While living on the east coast, he also pursued further graduate studies in health policy at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Throughout his career, he has worked to address intersectional LGBTQ+ health inequities through research and advocacy work, with organizations like the Association of LGBTQ+ Psychiatrists (AGLP), the American Psychiatric Association's Office of HIV Psychiatry, San Francisco Department of Public Health's HIV Prevention Section, Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, and The Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ+ Youth. His health services research has been published in Transgender Health and he has co-authored several textbook chapters on HIV psychiatry, LGBTQ+ care and medical education. He now works as a field-based psychiatrist with UCLA Health’s Homeless Healthcare Collaborative as well as with transitional-aged youth and young adults through various initiatives including Student Mental Health, the Aftercare Research Program and the EMPWR Program.

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Attending Psychiatrist, EMPWR Program
Volunteer Clinical Instructor, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine

Dr. Poblete is a board-certified psychiatrist who works primarily in community private practice, as well as at EMPWR as an attending psychiatrist. Dr. Poblete is a general psychiatrist with a special interest in working with members of the LGBTQ+ community, people living with HIV, and people living with serious mental illness. He received his undergraduate education at UC Berkeley, his medical education at UC San Francisco, and his residency training at UCLA. Prior to starting his career in medicine, Dr. Poblete worked as a community organizer, in the labor movement, and in HIV prevention. His clinical and therapeutic practice is grounded in evidence-based medicine, the biopsychosocial model of health, critical social theory, cognitive behavioral therapy, and mentalization-based therapy.

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Dr. Snyder provides children, young adults and families with LGBTQ+-centered care informed by CBT, DBT and meaning-centered psychotherapy principles. 

Dr. Snyder received her PhD in clinical psychology (emphasis in health) from Yeshiva University’s Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology. She also attained minors in clinical neuropsychology and in research methodology and statistics. She received a master’s in behavioral health from the University of San Francisco, a program emphasizing cultural competence and collaboration for health care providers and systems. She has received clinical training in every borough of New York City, including at hospitals in the Weill Cornell, New York University and Memorial Sloan Kettering systems. Her training has focused on work with adolescents and with adults of all ages: provision of individual therapy for a broad range of concerns including ADHD, anxiety, depression, psychosis, perinatal concerns, familial rejection of an LGBTQ identity, and grief; couples therapy; family therapy in the context of acute psychiatric hospitalization of a child; and psychological and neuropsychological assessment.

She completed her predoctoral internship at Northwell Health – Long Island Jewish Zucker Hillside Hospital, where she served as a clinician in the Adult Partial Hospital program, Perinatal Center, LGBTQ Transgender Program, and Adolescent Inpatient Unit. She also continues to contribute to research around headache disorders and the psychological impacts of both symptoms and treatments for these conditions. Dr. Snyder focuses on providing a collaborative, nonjudgmental therapeutic space for people of all ages.

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Dr. Kurup provides youth, young adults and families with clinical care grounded in identity development, from a framework of trauma-informed care using principles of third-wave CBT (such as DBT, ACT). 

Dr. Kurup received their PhD in clinical psychological sciences from Purdue University. They completed their predoctoral internship at The University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, VT. Her clinical and research work revolve around psychosocial well-being for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults. Dr. Kurup previously trained in two multidisciplinary gender health clinics, one housed in Indiana University Health in Indianapolis, IN, and the other housed in The University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, VT. 

In addition, they have received broad clinical training providing evidence-based treatment to young people with a range of clinical concerns including anxiety, depression and mood difficulties, trauma, obsessions and compulsions, ADHD, challenges with sleep, minority stress related to LGBTQ+ identities and other social identities, and coping with complex medical conditions, as well as diagnostic and neuropsychological assessment. Her research is also aimed at investigating youth well-being related to digital communication use (such as social media, text messaging). Dr. Kurup’s approach to therapy is highly collaborative and they strive to create a therapeutic environment that is warm, empowering and validating.

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Biography coming soon