Dr. Hansen is the Founding Director of the Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (CEDD), a position she has held since the founding of the organization in 2006.  She plays a lead role in numerous CEDD projects, including the Developmental Behavioral Pediatric Fellowship program, the interdisciplinary graduate-level training program, community training, the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Clinic, autism research, and the annual summer conference. 

 Dr. Hansen is a board-certified developmental behavioral pediatrician with vast experience in treating children with neurodevelopmental disorders as well as in clinical research. She is a Professor of Pediatrics at the UC Davis School of Medicine and the Director of Clinical Programs at the UC Davis MIND Institute.  She heads a multidisciplinary clinic that provides diagnostic services, plans/initiates intervention strategies, and works closely with patient families.  Her clinical research has focused on children's temperament and its effects on parenting, long-term effects of prenatal drug exposure, gene-environment interactions related to causes and early identification of autism spectrum disorders, and biomedical treatment for neurodevelopmental disorders. She is currently a co-investigator on several grants investigating gene-environment interactions and immune dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders.  She is also a governor's appointee to the State Council on Developmental Disabilities.