Galvan's research focuses on adolescent brain development and has informed public policy of teenage driving, sleep and juvenile justice. She received the American Psychological Association (APA) Early Career Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, APA Boyd McCandless Early Career Award, the William T. Grant Scholars Award and the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Young Investigator Award and serves as a Network Scholar for the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Jacobs Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation. She regularly teaches a popular UCLA undergraduate course on the developing brain.