Stay tuned for more information on WOW2027, benefiting mental health education, research and patient care programs at UCLA. The event will take place on Tuesday, April 13, 2027, at the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center. Doors will open at 9:00 am.
WOW Leadership Superstars
Cece Feiler, MFT
Founder, Event Chair
Nancy Glaser, MD
Founder, Event Chair
Laurie Gordon
Event Chair
Terry Hyman Hamermesh
Founder, Event Chair
Stephanie Lushing
Event Chair
STEWART AND LYNDA RESNICK NEUROPSyCHIATRIC HOSPITAL
The Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA is an independently accredited and licensed hospital that will move from its current Westwood location to anchor the new UCLA Behavioral Health Campus in Mid-Wilshire in 2027. The hospital is among the leading centers in the world for comprehensive patient care, research and education in the fields of mental health, developmental disabilities and neurology. It is the major psychiatric teaching facility of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
The Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA has a vision to serve the health care needs of the community, its patients and their families through excellence in research, education and the delivery of exemplary patient care and neuropsychiatric and behavioral health services. The hospital routinely appears among the top ten psychiatric hospitals in the annual U.S. News & World Report rankings and is the only hospital west of the Mississippi to be so noted.
Mission of the UCLA Resnick Hospital Board of Advisors
The Resnick Hospital Board of Advisors comprises individuals passionately committed to sustaining, supporting and continually enhancing psychiatric hospital-based services at UCLA for the Los Angeles community in an environment of professional training and scholarship that fosters the clinicians and treatments of the future.
Nationwide, hospital-based psychiatric services are threatened. The total number of freestanding psychiatric hospitals has markedly decreased over time due to reimbursement patterns and economic pressures. Concurrently, outpatient and partial hospitalization programs have not proliferated rapidly enough to make up for the lost inpatient beds. Vital psychiatric care in our community is necessarily provided confidentially outside of the limelight of high-tech, high-profitability medicine. A consequence of this obscurity is that the lifesaving services provided to patients, families and the community often do not grant large-scale recognition of philanthropy. The Resnick Hospital Board of Advisors is instrumental in helping to ensure that Southern California will continue to have world-class, hospital-based psychiatric services.
THE FRIENDS OF THE SEMEL INSTITUTE FOR NEUROSCIENCE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR AT UCLA
The Friends of the Semel Institute is a volunteer organization dedicated to improving the lives of people with mental illness by supporting research to advance innovative treatments and sponsoring educational programs that raise awareness and reduce stigma.
The Friends of the Semel Institute is proud to have an equitable, diverse and inclusive community that has board members and scholar grant recipients of every background. The Friends’ Open Mind community lecture and film series, free to the public, features thoughtful programming that addresses minority issues. The group has sponsored programs on topics such as autism, Alzheimer’s, anxiety disorders, aging, bipolar disorders, PTSD, mental health and the law, schizophrenia and suicide prevention.
The Teen Advisory Council (TAC) of the Friends of the Semel Institute is dedicated to raising awareness, reducing stigma and advocating for the mental health and well-being of high school students by providing opportunities to create meaningful programs that engage, empower and support peers as well as interact with mental health professionals.
In February 2024, TAC curated and presented the inaugural Gen Z Wellness Summit, themed “We Are All in This Together,” at the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center. More than 600 people heard inspiring and engaging conversations about issues important to Gen Z: social media, addiction, LGBTQ, climate change, eating disorders, anxiety and depression and relationships. The panel discussions featured social media influencers, a nonprofit founder, an author and podcast host, TAC students and Gen Z mental health advocates. These discussions were moderated by UCLA Semel Institute faculty.
The Friends Scholar Program awards grants to early-career scientists doing vital research to better understand the mind and brain and to develop improved treatments for mental and neurological disorders. The scholars who receive these awards represent the future of the UCLA Semel Institute and, more important, the future of treatment advancement for mental illness. Each year, The Friends awards grants to outstanding postdoctoral fellows or junior faculty doing translational research. To date, over two-dozen scholarships in areas such as eating disorders, ADHD, OCD, addiction, adolescent anxiety, concussion/traumatic brain injury and depression in dementia caregivers have been awarded by The Friends.
friendsofsemelinstitute.org | @UCLASemelFriend