Principal Investigator: Dr. Dana Saifan
Dr. Dana Saifan is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the FREEDOM Lab. Dr. Saifan earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, with a minor in Community Health Sciences, from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2022. She earned her B.A. in Psychology, with a minor in Public Health, from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2014. She is a Palestinian-American Muslim scholar and brings this lens into all of her work.
Dr. Saifan's research has primarily focused on how to improve mental health and address barriers to mental health care in marginalized communities. Her past work has examined these topics in community mental health settings across Los Angeles County, and her current work examines these topics in the Muslim American community. Her goal is to develop community-based collective approaches to healing for marginalized communities, integrating historical, social, and political perspectives with psychology. Dr. Saifan's clinical work has focused on children and adolescents who have been impacted by trauma, with a specialization in working with systems-impacted youth (e.g., foster youth). She has provided therapy in a variety of settings, including outpatient community mental health clinics, schools, short-term residential treatment centers, trauma recovery centers, and university training clinics. Her teaching aims provide students a critical perspective on psychology, challenging traditional / mainstream perspectives in order to think critically about mental health and research. Her goal is to help students understand psychology through the lens of social issues and social justice, and to draw connections between class concepts and their lives and communities.