Dr. Ali Mattu creates mental health and psychology media that is fun, easy to understand, and free to all. Through YouTube, Dr. Mattu teaches a global audience how to use psychological science to achieve their goals. He sparks conversations about mental health through storytelling performances, school assemblies, and pop culture conventions. He is the director of mental health at Loop, a startup helping you practice how to cope with social anxiety with the support of others like you.
Dr. Mattu spent a decade treating panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias, hair-pulling disorder (trichotillomania), skin-picking disorder (excoriation), tic disorder, and Tourette syndrome using cognitive behavioral therapy. He’s created over 150 videos for his YouTube channel, The Psych Show, which has over 5 million views and over 170,000 subscribers. Dr. Mattu was the co-host of PBS’s Emmy Nominated Self-Evident, an expert on Netflix + Vox’s The Mind Explained: Anxiety, HBO’s Doctor Commentaries, and A&E’s The Employables. He has been interviewed by the New York Times, appeared on Buzzfeed, MTV, CBS, NBC, PBS, and has the honor of being referenced, and not made fun of, on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
He received his B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles where he majored in psychology and minored in Asian American studies. Dr. Mattu received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He completed a doctoral internship at the Bellevue Hospital Center and a post-doctoral fellowship at the NYU Langone Medical Center's Child Study Center. He was formerly an assistant professor at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City.
Dr. Mattu recently served on the Board of Directors of The Story Collider. He has also served in a variety of leadership roles within the American Psychological Association including the Board of Directors, Council of Representatives, Council Leadership Team, Policy and Planning Board, Good Governance Project, and the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students.
Dr. Mattu has been called a “forward thinker” in psychology. He was named one of The Mighty’s mental health heroes of 2015. His work has been described as “simple, thoughtful, and actionable.” Dr. Mattu lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.