Dr. Curiel is a principal at Behavioral Cognition, LLC, where she has conducted research in the area of cognitive psychology. She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame where her dissertation work focused on memory and narrative comprehension. She has taught cognitive psychology and statistics courses at the University of Texas at San Antonio and at Notre Dame. She has published articles in scientific journals and peer-reviewed conferences, primarily focusing on the structure of mental maps and situation models, age-related differences in memory, and situation awareness. A lifelong Catholic from Southern California, she is the mother to a mathematically inclined son who is receiving a Classical education.