Dr. GallagherThompson specializes in treatment of late-life depression and in working with persons with neurocognitive disorders (such dementia) and their family caregivers/ care partners. She provides individual psychotherapy, using a cognitive/behavioral framework (CBT) as part of the Geropsychiatry outpatient clinic at Stanford. She also leads psychoeducational workshops.as part of the Neuroscience Center's community educational programs..She is a board-certified specialist in Geropsychology (psychology of older adults) and is a licensed clinical psychologist who has been in practice for 25 years.

She received her degree in clinical psychology/adult development and aging from the University of Southern California and did her clinical training at UCLA. She has been an NIH funded researcher for the past 25 years and is most noted for her empirical studies on the efficacy of psychoeducational interventions to reduce stress and improve the psychological status of family caregivers of older adults with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. She has culturally modified, translated, and tailored programs for Chinese-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and Farci-speaking caregivers. In addition she works with an international advisory group, led by WHO, that has created an on-line web-based program to provide education and skill training globally to dementia family caregivers. The third edition of the edited book, Ethnicity and the Dementias, was published in 2019. Additionally, she is a Fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy and a recognized Trainer/ Consultant/ Supervisor in CBT. In collaboration with others she is completing 2nd edition of the clinician guide and client workbook in the Treatments that Work series (Oxford). These focus on effective use of CBT with older adults. In addition, she has worked with colleagues to create an edited "primer" on geropsychology. All three books will be published in 2021.

At present she is Emerita Professor of Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, and former Director of the Outreach, Recruitment and Education Core of the Stanford Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. The latter focused on recruiting Latino and American Indian persons with dementia and their family caregivers. She has authored over 200 papers in major journals in the field. She is co-founder and current member of the Diversity & Inclusion Committee of the local northern CA chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. She is an associate editor of the journal Clinical Gerontologist: The Journal of Mental Health, Diversity, and Aging.

Current active projects include: consulting on development and implementation of an internet-based programs for rural US caregivers of persons with dementia, and for family caregivers of older adults with any form of dementia in Thailand. She is currently working with collaborators at UCSF on the CARE project which aims to establish a research registry specifically for Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders who have been traditionally very under-represented in health-related research. Finally, she is working with a local technology company to develop a suite of apps for mobile phones and tablets, aimed at family caregivers.