Stella E. Panos, PhD

Stella Panos, PhD focuses on adult and geriatric neuropsychological assessment. She has experience working with patients who present with an array of medical/neurological illnesses (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease, Dementia with Lewy Body, Parkinson’s disease, HIV, traumatic brain injury, brain tumor, etc.) in various medical settings (acute inpatient, residential rehabilitation, outpatient). She currently holds faculty appointments as Health Sciences Assistant Clinical Professor (Voluntary) at the UCLA Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and as Visiting Assistant Professor at the California Lutheran University, Graduate Psychology Doctoral Program.

Dr. Panos graduated with double Bachelor’s degrees from the University of California in Irvine (Psychology and Social behavior & Classics) and went on to complete her MA and PhD in Clinical Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, Graduate School of Psychology. She completed a Geropsychology Internship at the West Los Angeles VA and a 3-year National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship in Neuropsychology at the UCLA Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior. During her fellowship, she was a recipient of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institutes of Aging (NIA) Clinical Research Loan Repayment Award (2011-2013) and Principal Investigator of a grant funded by the UCLA AIDS Institute and the UCLA Center for AIDS Research.

Dr. Panos worked as a neuropsychologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she managed the inpatient acute medical neuropsychology consult & liaison service, conducting neuropsychological evaluations, capacity evaluations, short-term psychotherapy, and behavioral management. Before joining Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Dr. Panos worked as a staff psychologist at the West Los Angeles VA, during which time she managed one of the hospital’s largest mental health consult services and initiated telehealth assessment for Veterans seeking admission into the West Los Angeles VA Domiciliary from remote VAs. She has several years of experience working with patients suffering from the neurobehavioral health sequelae of various neurological illnesses, many of whom suffer from age-related neurodegenerative disorders.

Dr. Panos is actively involved in NeuroAIDS research through the National Neurological AIDS Bank (NNAB) and serves on the Neuropsychology Subcommittee of the National NeuroAIDS Tissue Consortium. Her publications have focused on the impact of age and genetic factors associated with HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder as well as the impact of neurobehavioral features on medication adherence to antiretroviral therapy.