Ayelet was born and raised in Ma’alot, a small town in northern Israel. She studied at the Tefen Democratic School, where she concentrated on mathematics, biology and psychology. During her high school years, Ayelet volunteered in Magen David Adom and at a center caring for individuals with special needs. After graduating high school, she volunteered for a year in Safed, working with youths from a low socio-economic background. She served in the army for two and a half years in the Air Force Traffic Control Unit.

In 2009, Ayelet began her BSc in Biomedical Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. In her final year, Ayelet began working as a research assistant in the laboratory of Prof. Ilan Dinstein, in the Psychology Department. During that year, Ayelet developed advanced algorithms for analyzing EEG activity recorded from individuals with autism, in an attempt to uncover the unique sensory processing that characterizes such individuals. Working in a research lab specializing in neuroimaging and computational neuroscience motivated Ayelet to pursue graduate studies in the Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences at Ben-Gurion University. She completed her master’s degree summa cum laude and continued to a PhD in the same department, all under Prof. Dinstein’s supervision.

Ayelet’s research focuses on the reliability of neural responses. Using neuroimaging techniques such as EEG and fMRI, Ayelet has shown that the neural activity of the human brain varies dramatically across trials and over time, even when the same sensory stimuli are presented repeatedly. This brain variability is tightly related to cognitive function and behavior and is found to be greater in humans with neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD and autism. Ayelet found that neural variability is a stable human trait that constrains individual perceptual abilities and cognitive performances, though it can be slightly altered by means of flexible cognitive mechanisms such as allocating attention.

Alongside her principal research, Ayelet has conducted two projects at the National Center for Autism Research at Ben--urion University. In the first, she examined sleep disturbances in children with autism and uncovered an impaired sleep mechanism that may underlie the high prevalence of sleep disorders in this population. In the second, she is analyzing brain MRI scans of toddlers with autism in an effort to identify early brain abnormalities.

In the fall of 2020, Ayelet will begin her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Prof. Tobias Donner at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany. Alongside her principal research, Ayelet has conducted two projects at the National Center for Autism Research at Ben Gurion University. In the first, she examined sleep disturbances in children with autism and uncovered an impaired sleep mechanism that may underlie the high prevalence of sleep disorders in this population. In the second, she is analyzing brain MRI scans of toddlers with autism in an effort to identify early brain abnormalities.

During her PhD studies, Ayelet was awarded the Ben Gurion University of the Negev fellowship for outstanding students, and the prestigious Adams fellowship of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. She has published several papers as a first author and presented her research at a number of national and international scientific conferences.

In the fall of 2020, Ayelet will begin her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Prof. Tobias Donner at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany. During that time, Ayelet will explore the neural bases of decision-making processes, and specifically how previous choices bias current decisions, using advanced computational models for neural and behavioral data in humans.