Federmeier, a full-time faculty member in the Cognitive Neuroscience group at Beckman, tied for first place in the rankings of nominees for the award along with Dr. Diego Pizzagalli of Harvard University. Erin Hazlett, Chair of the Early Award Committee, said the "uniformly high quality of the nominees presented a challenge for the Award Committee," which decided unanimously to grant the award to both Federmeier and Pizzagalli.

As a recipient of the Award, Federmeier has been invited to address the Society at its annual meeting in October and to have her talk published in the SPR journal, Psychophysiology.

Federmeier is director of the Cognition and Brain Laboratory at Beckman. Her research focuses on how people communicate meaning and comprehend language. Federmeier's psychophysiological approach to research includes using eye-tracking devices and an electrophysiological cap developed at her laboratory that measures event-related brain potentials (ERPs), which are used to gauge how the brain reacts to certain stimuli.

Federmeier is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the U of I before completing her doctorate in Cognitive Science at University of California at San Diego.