Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Psychology, University of Washington, 2024
  • M.S., Psychology, University of Washington, 2022
  • B.A., Psychology, Willamette University, 2017
Academic Appointments
  • Graduate Teaching Assistant, Psychology, University of Washington, 2019-2023
Professional Honors
  • University of Washington Auditory Neuroscience Training Grant (NIH T32), 2022-2024
  • University of Washington Center for Human Neuroscience Student Technology Grant, 2022
  • Society for Text and Discourses Graduate Student Research Award, 2020
  • Willamette University Noel F. Kaestner Award in Psychology, 2017

Dr. Mottarella is a cognitive scientist and experimental psychologist with expertise in knowledge development, skill learning, and human performance. She has a strong background in analyzing cognitive processes such as memory, attention, natural language, and behavior in complex skills like computer programming. Dr. Mottarella applies her knowledge to a range of human factors projects, including both incident investigation as well as proactive consulting.

Dr. Mottarella earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Washington, where her research focused on how individual differences in cognitive abilities affect the learning and performance of complex skills. She also explored how environmental factors and lapses in attention can disrupt these processes. Dr. Mottarella has received multiple grants and awards for her research, which employs various quantitative and qualitative methodologies, including neuroscience techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), event-related potentials (ERPs), and spectral analysis of quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG), as well as behavioral experiments, interviews, and surveys. Her work has identified behavioral and neural indices of successful skill acquisition and has demonstrated effects that factors like sleep deprivation and fatigue can have on cognition.

During her graduate studies, Dr. Mottarella interned with the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General. There, she worked with diverse stakeholders and applied her research skills to public health issues including evaluating disparities in accessing healthcare, reporting of adverse patient events, oversight regulations relating to medical fraud, and barriers to implementing sanitation infrastructure.

Dr. Mottarella is skilled in designing research studies, conducting statistical analyses, communicating results to a variety of audiences, and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams. She has taught classes and assisted in curriculum development for courses in cognitive psychology, research methods, sensation and perception, psychology of sleep, and general psychology. Dr. Mottarella has authored peer-reviewed publications on how sleep deprivation can impair selective attention, roles of language skills in modulating cognitive control, and neurocognitive factors that drive computer programming skill acquisition. She has also authored a book chapter on using qEEG methods to study second-language learning and bilingualism.