Dr. Arriaga's emphasis is on using psychological theories and methods to address fundamental topics of human computer interaction and social computing. Her research interest is in the area of chronic care management. Recently she has addressed some of the following questions: how software solutions can improve asthma management in children, how crowd sourcing can aid individuals with autism spectrum disorders and their caregiver, and how lab-based technologies can be scaled and deployed to broaden their impact. She also studies the role that theory plays in design. One question she has addressed is whether systems designed with principles of human development and cognition can be effective across different clinical populations simply by altering the content (e.g., from asthma information to diabetes information).

She received a M.A. and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Harvard University. She joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2006 where she is currently a Senior Research Scientist in the School of Interactive Computing. In the 2014-15 academic year she was a visiting scientist at Carnegie Mellon University's Human Computer Interaction Institute and at The Technology for Emerging Market's Group at Microsoft Research India.