Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Experimental Psychology, New York University, 2008
  • M.A., Psychology, New York University, 2006
Additional Education & Training
  • Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University, 2008-2010
Professional Honors
  • Career Awards
  • TÜBITAK Encouragement Award, 2016
  • Presidential award recognizing outstanding international contributions to science across all disciplines. In December 2016, Öztekin was the recipient of the Encouragement Award in Social Sciences. As indicated in the official press release, this award honored her “outstanding international contributions to the fields of Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, in the areas of representation in memory, cognitive control, and computational modeling of memory processes”.
  • Young Investigator Awards
  • New Investigator Award in Experimental Psychology, 2011
  • Awarded by the American Psychological Association, for her work on individual differences in working memory capacity (see Öztekin & McElree, 2011)
  • Young Investigator Award, 2013
  • Awarded by the Science Academy in Turkey for exceptional scientists under the age of 40
  • Awards Supporting Graduate Research
  • Dissertation Research Award, 2006
  • Awarded by the American Psychological Association
  • Psychology Graduate Scholarship, 2006
  • Awarded by the American Psychological Foundation, and Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology Graduate Scholarship
  • Katzell Summer Fellowship, 2006
  • Awarded by the Department of Psychology at New York University
  • Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship, 2007
  • Awarded by the Dean of Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University
  • Martin Braine Fellowship, 2008
  • Other Awards
  • Google Research Award, 2011

Dr. Öztekin's expertise centers around the behavioral and brain mechanisms of human information processing, with particular focus on human memory, attention, and cognitive control. She is an expert on the mechanisms of information retrieval from memory, especially in the face of interference from previously learned material. 

Dr. Öztekin has studied individual differences in capacity and efficiency of information processing in healthy adults, in addition to the behavioral and brain mechanisms that undergo changes during typical and atypical development, and in aging. She has more than 15 years of experience directing research projects involving human subjects, utilizing a variety of experimental methods, including cognitive, behavioral and brain imaging studies.

Her research has employed a breadth of statistical approaches that entail quantitative data analysis techniques and predictive modeling using machine learning. Dr. Öztekin's research and published work spans multiple disciplines in the Cognitive Sciences, including Experimental Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Computational Psychology/Neuroscience, as well as Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience.

At Exponent, Dr. Öztekin uses her expertise in human information processing and her prior background in human cognition and neuroscience to support investigations related to human factors pertinent in evaluation of warnings and safety information, child safety and risk analysis, and user testing/studies. Dr. Öztekin received her PhD from the Cognition & Perception program of New York University's Department of Psychology and completed her postdoctoral training at the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences at Brown University. Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Öztekin served her scientific community through teaching, mentoring, and conducting research on human cognition and neuroscience for over ten years.