Are you interested in gaining research experience by working as a research assistant? Being involved in a research lab is a great way to experience how psychological knowledge is generated. Even if you have not contemplated a career in research or academia, being a research assistant gives you invaluable experience in critical thinking, problem solving, and teamwork.
If you are a research assistant in my lab, you will work closely with myself and a team of graduate and undergraduate students. You will participate in many aspects of research, such as the design and distribution of surveys, conducting experiments, content-analysis/coding, data analysis, literature search/reviews, and more! Students who participate in research with me include students receiving psychology credit for research (e.g., Psychology 326), work study students, honors students, or UROP students.
Criteria for Research Assistants:
- Show up!
- Commitment to work a minimum of 9 hours a week or more
- Regular attendance in weekly research meetings
- Reliability: On time for meetings and deadlines, accountability in fulfilling responsibilities
- Speak up!
- Communication skills: Active discussion of research process and ideas in meetings; openness to giving and receiving feedback from others
- Lift others up!
- Teamwork: Help others on the research team solve problems, provide assistance to other students’ projects when needed
- Look up!
- Motivated to move up to the “next level” and contribute to generating new psychological knowledge
- Passion for learning new research skills
- Strong interest in ongoing research projects
- Prior research experience is not necessary
If you are interested, please send me an email (fionalee@umich.edu; with “Interest in being a Research Assistant” in the subject line). Please include the following information in your email:
- Your name
- Hours you can work
- Your prior work and research experience (if any)
- Your major (or intended major if you have not declared)
- Your transcript
- A brief description of what you want to get out of being a research assistant in my lab
- Read a few of my recent research papers. Based on what you read, what findings were most interesting to you and why?