Kara D. Federmeier received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego. She is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Neuroscience Program at the University of Illinois and a full-time faculty member at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, where she leads the Illinois Language and Literacy Initiative and heads the Cognition and Brain Lab. She is also a Past President of the Society for Psychophysiological Research. Her research examines meaning comprehension and memory using human electrophysiological techniques, in combination with behavioral, eyetracking, and other functional imaging and psychophysiological methods. She has been funded by the National Institute on Aging, the Institute of Education Sciences, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.