She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cognition and Development at the University of California, Berkeley, a Ph.D. and a M.S. in Human Development and Family Studies from the Pennsylvania State University, and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Mello has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Institute for Education Sciences, and the American Educational Research Association. She has been honored with an Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Human Development Division of the American Educational Research Association, and she has served on the Executive Councils of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development and the Society for Research on Adolescence.