Abigail B. Sivan, Ph.D.
Developmental Neuropsychologist
Abigail Sivan, Ph.D. received her doctorate in educational research from New York University, and continued her education in clinical psychology while teaching at Michigan State University. In Israel from 1975 to 1981, Dr. Sivan directed the Kibbutz Child Development Center, worked in the rehabilitation division of the IDF, taught at several medical schools and conducted research at the Brain Behavior Research Unit at Hadassah/Hebrew University Medical Center. She has since worked for the University of Iowa’s Child Development Clinic of the Division of Developmental Disabilities, the Section of Child Psychiatry at Rush University, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare and two forensic practices in Chicago. Dr. Sivan has served on the Iowa Board of Psychology Examiners, the American Psychological Association’s Ethics Committee and Ethics Code Task Force, and in 1994 consulted to the UN Commission on War Crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Dr. Sivan holds academic appointments as an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg Medical School of Northwestern University and is staff-affiliated with Evanston Hospital where she teaches ethics in the practice of medicine. She is currently consulting to the National Institute of Health’s Toolbox Project. Dr. Sivan is licensed in both Illinois and Iowa.
Specialty areas of research and practice include pediatric neuropsychology; neuropsychological test development for children and adults; the acceptability of behavior rating scales among minority parents; and explorations of the sequelae of victimization.