Faculty Spotlight #11

Rowena Gomez, Ph.D.,

Rowena Gomez specializes in aging and neuropsychology. She has also applied thisfocus to the study of affective disorders, in particular psychotic major depression. Related interests are the diagnosis and treatment of dementia, and older adults’ ability to cope with age-related changes. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Dr. Gomez earned her Ph.D. at Washington University at St. Louis, studying aging and neuropsychology, and completed a clinical neuropsychology internship at Palo Alto Veteran’s Health Care System. In 2002, she became a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, where she focused on depressive disorders. In 2004, she received a Young Investigator Award Grant by the National Alliance of Research for Schizophrenia and Depression to examine the cognitive, hormonal, and (brain) structural differences in psychotic major depression versus nonpsychotic major depression. In 2003, she began teaching at PAU as an instructor for the statistics courses and later research methods. In April 2005, she was hired full-time as an assistant professor at PGSP.