Faculty Collective-Luciana Lagana
Luciana Lagana` is a full professor in the CSUN Department of Psychology who has authored over 30 peer-reviewed publications. In her “Adult Behavioral Medicine Laboratory,” students collect, enter, and analyze data on the physical/medical, psychosocial, and sexual needs of cognitively high-functioning, community-dwelling women and men of all ages and ethnic backgrounds. The development and validation of scales measuring social and psychological needs among primarily non-Caucasian, low-income older women is another focus of this lab. Dr. Lagana`’s NIH-funded current grant is entitled “Trauma, PTSD symptomatology, and health among multiethnic older women.” Research in this area is highly needed, as older women with unaddressed PTSD symptoms often have unexplained somatic symptomatology, which leads to consulting doctors frequently and with discouraging results. Thus, investigating their trauma exposure, PTSD, and related health has the potential to save money, energy, and visits to doctors. Dr. Lagana`’s research lab is very productive, has won several CSUN awards, and is full of highly motivated students. Members of this lab co-write research posters and present them at conferences. They also co-write manuscripts on the findings of their research and submit them for consideration for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Lagana` encourages participation in her lab by students from groups underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. She is currently engaged in a variety of mentoring activities as part of several government-funded CSUN grants targeting ethnic minority students.