Nelly Matorina
Research Associate
Profile
Biography
- Research Associate, Department of Psychology, University of York (November 2025 – current)
- Ph.D. Psychology, University of Toronto, 2020-2025
- Course Instructor (part-time), Department of Psychology, University of Toronto (January 2024 – April 2025)
- M.Sc. Psychology, Queen’s University, 2016-2018
- B.Sc. (Hons.) Psychology and Film, Queen’s University, 2011-2016
Departmental roles
- Psychology Green Impact Team
Research
Overview
Forgetting unwanted memories during sleep
Projects
I am working on the SLEEPAWAY project, which aims to understand how memory reactivation during sleep may contribute to the forgetting of unwanted memories. This project will use a combination of EEG, fMRI, and MEG to determine whether memory reactivation during sleep contributes to forgetting.
During my PhD, I focused on the role of sleep in the consolidation of naturalistic and autobiographical memories.
Research group(s)
- SLAM
Grants
- Ebbinghaus Award for Most Outstanding Talk at Toronto Area Memory Group Conference (2024)
- Doctoral Graduate Scholarship, Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (2022-2025)
- Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Ontario government (2021)
- Faculty of Arts and Sciences Top Doctoral Fellowship, University of Toronto (2020-2024)
Collaborators
- Professor Scott Cairney
Publications
Selected publications
Matorina, N., Meade, M. E., Starenky, J., & Barense, M. D. (2025). Drawing promotes memory retention in a patient with sleep-related anterograde amnesia. Memory & Cognition, 53(1), 395-408. View article
Matorina, N., & Barense, M. D. (2024). Sleep and Autobiographical Memory. Current Sleep Medicine Reports, 10(4), 387-397. View article
Matorina, N., Tseng, J., Ladyka-Wojcik, N., Olsen, R., Mabbott, D. J., & Barense, M. D. (2023). Sleep differentially and profoundly impairs recall memory in a patient with fornix damage. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 35(10), 1635-1655. View article
Matorina, N., & Poppenk, J. (2021). Memory decay distinguishes subtypes of gist. Neurobiology of learning and memory, 185, 107519. View article
