Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Pyschology, Colorado State University, 2020
  • B.S., Neuroscience, University of Nebraska, 2012
  • B.A., German, University of Nebraska, 2012
Licenses & Certifications
  • Certified English XL Tribometrist (CXLT)
Academic Appointments
  • Instructor, Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, 2015-2020
Professional Honors
  • Regents Scholarship, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2007
  • Outstanding German Major, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2012
  • Legacy of the Wishing Chair-Stout/Baird Memorial Scholarship, Colorado State University, 2017
Professional Affiliations
  • American Psychological Association (APA)
  • Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS)
  • Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES)
  • Society for functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (SfNIRS)
  • Society for Neuroscience (SfN)

Dr. Becker has expertise and extensive training in human perception, aging, attention, cognition, affective audiovisual processing, and multimodal neuroimaging. She applies this experience to evaluating and explaining the human factors that affect perception and influence decision making in various contexts including motor vehicle and pedestrian accidents, slips and falls, and warning communication. Dr. Becker has extensive experience in experimental design, auditory and visual stimulus creation, behavioral and functional brain imaging data collection and analysis, and scientific communication. 

Dr. Becker received her Ph.D. in Psychology with a focus in cognitive neuroscience from Colorado State University. Her graduate research utilized electrophysiological (EEG, MEG) and hemodynamic (fMRI, fNIRS) neuroimaging techniques to quantify the neural substrates underlying the perceptual biases introduced by prosodic voices when viewing emotional faces. Additionally, Dr. Becker examined the effect of spatial cueing on influencing these biases.

After completing her Ph.D., Dr. Becker worked with the National Institute of Health's Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) with creating extensive literature reviews and making experimental recommendations for several cognitive-perceptual tasks included in RDoC's research framework. These reviews aided in the design and development of computerized adaptive tests which target and examine specific psychological constructs. Dr. Becker also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University, where her work focused on quantifying the neurophysiological and cognitive changes associated with short-term hearing augmentation in older adults with age-related hearing loss (ARHL) using magnetoencephalography. More specifically, she examined the effect of short-term hearing aid use on increasing neural efficiency and improving speech perception in challenging listening conditions in older adults with ARHL.