Melissa Tarantola is a clinical psychologist living in Tokyo, Japan. There she worked for Impute, Inc. where she provided psychological and psychometric consultation regarding the assessment they were developing for use in their Autism treatment application. Here consultation ensured their mobile-adapted assessment was evidence-based and psychometrically sound yet easily understood and completed by the user.

She has expertise in motivation, addiction and reinforcement learning, having completed her dissertation titled, “Motivation for Smoking and Quitting: A Self-determination Theory Investigation” at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Since then, she’s published numerous publications on addiction. While in Missouri, she taught and developed the course “Introduction to Psychology” at Steven’s College.