Jolie Straus, MS

Jolie is a PhD doctoral student at UCLA specializing in evidence-based treatment for children and adolescents with anxiety, autism, and OCD. She has experience treating OCD, anxiety (e.g., social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and separation anxiety), autism, selective mutism, and tic disorders in children and teens. She is also trained in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) for behavior dysregulation and selective mutism. She has been trained in exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy for OCD and has served as a therapist at UCLA Semel’s Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders program where she provided individual and group therapy. She has also been trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders and has additional experience working with autistic children, teens, and adults.

Jolie received her bachelor's degree from Tufts University with majors in Child Development and Psychology. She continued on at Tufts to receive her master's degree in Child and Human Development. Before beginning her PhD program, Jolie worked at Boston Children’s Hospital supporting children with neurodevelopmental disorders and rare genetic disorders. She assisted in various research studies that focused on mapping phenotypes for individuals with rare genetic disorders, Fragile X syndrome, Down syndrome, and autism. Jolie administered various cognitive, motor, language, social, and autism-related assessments to infants, children, adolescents, and adults. Throughout her PhD program at UCLA, Jolie pursued her passion in working with children, adolescents, and their families through therapeutic interventions.

​In her free time, Jolie loves spending time outdoors (e.g., hiking, being in nature and in the sun, etc.), taking dance classes, playing board games, and spending quality time with her friends and family.

Jolie practices under Dr. Danielle Cornacchio and Dr. Lindsey Bergman’s supervision.