Advertisements for Research Assistant (RA) positions in the Psychology Department other than research awards

Principal Investigator: Dr. Jonathan Oakman
Graduate students: Alex Milovanov, Katie Finch, Sarena Daljeet, Carla Rumeo
Lab website: https://uwaterloo.ca/psychological-intervention-research-team/
Contact: pirtlab@gmail.com

Our research team studies the change process in psychotherapy, addressing a number of research questions using a range of research methods. We are interested in the relation of

• client characteristics
• therapist characteristics
• features of the therapist-client relationship
• properties of the psychological intervention itself

to both the process of a psychological intervention and its eventual outcome. Through our research we are seeking to improve the efficacy and acceptability of psychological interventions to those seeking help for mental health problems.

Some of the current projects in the lab:
 

Katie is investigating the use of imagery-based techniques to reduce music performance anxiety. She is interested in the ways musicians habitually use imagery, as well as how it might be most effectively employed to alleviate anxiety. Additionally, Katie is investigating the prevalence and impact of musicians' experiences of negative intrusive imagery and how this might be related to music performance anxiety.

Alex is investigating how common therapeutic factors (e.g., therapist’s empathy and perceived expertise) interact with each other and lead to better outcomes in psychotherapy and alternative treatments (e.g., acupuncture, homeopathy).

Sarena is investing how common factors (e.g., emotional processing) develop within and between sessions of psychotherapy and subsequently lead to better outcomes.

Carla is examining whether therapists perceive important differences in the development of therapeutic processes (such as the therapeutic alliance and emotional closeness) when comparing their experiences providing online mediated therapy (i.e. video chat platforms) and face to face therapy.

Qualifications for the volunteering position:

• We are looking for motivated and conscientious students with an interest in clinical psychology
• Prior research experience is not necessary (but is desired)
• Applicants should have at least an 80% average in their completed psychology courses.

Duties:

• Data collection, data coding, behaviour coding, data entry, recruitment and scheduling of participants, management of online studies, and preparation of study materials (e.g., building questionnaires using online survey software).

Optional, depending on students’ interests:

• Review research literature on topic of interest and present findings
• Participate in weekly research meetings/talks
• Develop and share research ideas
• Come up with original research ideas, collect data or use existing data to conduct statistical analyses, and present the findings (e.g., in the form of conference poster presentations, or publications).

Time commitment: 6–8 hours/week, one semester minimum (more than one semester preferable).

Benefits:

• Excellent research opportunity for students interested in graduate studies in Clinical Psychology
• Learn about psychotherapy process research (why do people improve in psychotherapy?), as well as about clinical psychology research more generally
• Opportunity to learn critical research skills (e.g., literature review, statistical analysis)

This involves:

• Approximately 4-5 hours a week
• Preference is given to students majoring in psychology or a closely related field.
• Preference is given to students who can demonstrate academic excellence (min. 80% average in psychology courses),
• Upper-year students are also preferred as having taken additional psychology courses is helpful for understanding coding concepts.
• Preference is given to students who can demonstrate academic excellence (min. 85% average in psychology courses), excellent verbal ability, and good interpersonal skills.

***As of February 2023 , we are specifically recruiting for a project involving correcting computer-generated transcripts of psychotherapy sessions as well as another project involving observational coding of the therapeutic alliance

How to Apply:
If you are interested in this position, please email an updated copy of your C.V., unofficial transcript, and a writing sample (ideally recent and from a psychology course) to pirtlab@gmail.com. If you have applied to the lab before, please send updated versions. While we would like to respond to all applicants, we receive a large volume of applications and it is not always possible. Applicants invited to apply will be asked to submit a brief application. Transcribers will be invited to start immediately or can defer until the next semester.

Cognition and Natural Behaviour Laboratory 

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Evan Risko 
Contact: Dr. Evan Risko, efrisko@uwaterloo.ca

Research Area: Cognitive psychology, embodied and embedded cognition, effort, metacognition, learning/education/training.

Duties: 

• Data collection, coding, recruitment and scheduling of participants, management of online studies.
• Behaviour coding, data entry, and preparation of study materials.
• Statistical analysis (training provided in SPSS, R).
• Attend weekly laboratory meetings.

Time commitment: minimum 6 –8 hours/week 

Qualifications:

• We are looking for smart, reliable, and conscientious students with an interest in cognitive psychology.
• Basic computer literacy is expected and advanced computer skills (e.g., programming) are desired.
• Prior research experience is not necessary (but is desired).
• Applicants should have at least an 80% average in their completed psychology courses.

Benefits:

• Develop research experience in a fun and supportive learning environment.
• Learn about human cognition.
• Opportunity to participate in all aspects of research from research design to dissemination of results.
• Learn critical and transferable research skills (e.g., programming, statistical analysis).
• Potential to develop your own research projects. 

How to Apply: 

If you're interested in any of these positions, please email the following documents to Dr. Evan Risko (efrisko@uwaterloo.ca). 

1. Cover letter describing why you want to work in the Cognition and Natural Behaviour Laboratory
2. Resume/CV
3. Unofficial transcript

Decision, Inference, and Cognitive Economics (DICE) Lab (https://www.sgbjohnson.com/) 

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Sam Johnson 
Contact: Dr. Sam Johnson, samuel.johnson@uwaterloo.ca

Research areas:

Our lab works at the intersection of cognitive science, behavioural economics, and philosophy. We study how people explain the world, how those explanations shape our choices, and how those choices influence society. Recent topics of interest include moral psychology, mental models of economic institutions, decision under uncertainty, and how people prioritize tasks. We mainly use experiments but increasingly incorporate other methods—such as qualitative research, computational linguistics, economic modeling, and computer simulation—in our work.

Duties: 

We aim for undergraduate research assistants to be involved in many aspects of the research process, potentially including:

• Brainstorming research ideas and designing experiments
• Creating experimental stimuli and programming experiments
• Testing participants and coding behaviour/responses
• Statistical and qualitative data analysis (we can train you in R or SPSS)
• Computer simulations
• Attending weekly lab meetings

Time commitment: 5 hours/week (minimum)

Qualifications:

• We are looking for passionate, reliable, and conscientious students with an interest in cognitive science, economics, or empirical philosophy
• Prior research experience is not necessary; we welcome applicants from any major or year of study
• Basic computer literacy is expected; it is desirable to either have or be willing to learn advanced computer skills (e.g., programming)
• Applicants should have at least an 80% average in their completed psychology courses.

Benefits:

• Learn about and contribute to the cutting edge of cognitive and behavioural science
• Find out what it is like to do graduate school in cognitive psychology
• Collaborate on projects with our team, spanning different fields, universities, and countries
• Try out different aspects of the research process
• Potentially co-author scientific publications (many former undergraduates are co-authors on journal articles or conference presentations)
• Learn critical research skills (e.g., programming, statistical analysis)
• Potential to develop your own research projects 
• Highly dignified lab mascot (tinyurl.com/mr3kscxm)

How to apply: 
If you're interested in any of these positions, please email the following documents to Dr. Sam Johnson (samuel.johnson@uwaterloo.ca)

1. Brief cover letter describing why you want to work in the DICE Lab

2. Resume/CV

3. Unofficial transcript

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Colin MacLeod
Contact: Dr. MacLeod (cmacleod@uwaterloo.ca)

Research Areas 

Our lab examines human attention, learning, and memory. Our particular emphasis is on the fundamental processes that underlie associative learning as well as memory encoding and retrieval. 

Duties

• Carrying out a variety of usually computer-based experiments
• Data collection, coding, recruitment and scheduling of participants, management of online studies
• Behaviour coding, data entry, and preparation of study materials
• Some statistical analysis (training provided in Excel, R, jasp/jamovi)
• Other responsibilities dependent on your interests

Time commitment: minimum 6 –8 hours/week 

Qualifications

• We are looking for reliable, conscientious students with an interest in cognitive psychology, basic processes, and psychology of attention, learning, and memory
• Basic computer literacy is expected; advanced computer skills (e.g., programming) are desired
• Prior research experience is not necessary (but is welcome)
• Applicants should enjoy working with others as part of a team
• Applicants should have at least an 80% average in their completed psychology courses
• Applicants should be enthusiastic about research!

Benefits

• Develop skills and experience in working within a psychology lab
• Learn about research in human memory and cognition
• Opportunity to participate in all aspects of research from research design to dissemination of results
• Learn critical research skills (e.g., programming, statistical analysis)

How to apply

If you're interested in volunteering in our lab, please email the following documents to Dr. MacLeod (cmacleod@uwaterloo.ca):

1. Cover letter describing why you are interested in joining the Memory, Attention, and Cognition Lab
2. Resume/CV
3. Unofficial transcript

Reasoning and Decision-Making Lab
Faculty Supervisors: Dr. Jonathan Fugelsang and Dr. Derek Koehler
Contact: Kaiden Stewart

Research Area: reasoning, decision-making, judgment, cognitive psychology.

Duties: 

• data collection, coding, and management
• managing the scheduling of participants
• online study administration
• helping with study materials and ethics applications
• some statistical analysis (beginner training will be provided)
• assisting the production of study ideas and design
• literature search
• attend weekly lab meetings (optional)

Time commitment: 3-5 hours/week (minimum)

Qualifications:

• we are looking for reliable, and conscientious students with an interest in cognitive psychology, especially decision-making
• basic computer literacy is expected and advanced computer skills (e.g., programming) are desired
• prior research experience is not necessary
• applicants should be able to demonstrate they can work well as part of a team
• applicants should demonstrate desire to get involved with research

Benefits:

• gain experience working in a real psychology laboratory
• learn about the current state of scientific knowledge about human cognition, specifically as it pertains to decision-making
• participate in all aspects of research
• learn critical research skills (e.g., programming, statistical analysis)
• refine your oral and written communication skills

How to Apply: 
If you're interested in any of these positions, please send the following to Kaiden Stewart:

1. Cover letter describing why you want to work in the Reasoning and Decision-Making Lab
2. Resume/CV
3. Unofficial transcript

Dr. Roxane Itier

Research Area:

Cognitive and neural correlates of face and object perception and higher social cognitive functions such as empathy, theory of mind and self-relevance processing biases in undergraduate students.

Duties:

• Recruiting and scheduling participants
• Running EEG experiments with undergraduates
• EEG data collection, pre-processing and management
• EEG/ERP data analyses
• General laboratory maintenance

Time commitment: Approximately 8-10 hours per week for PSYCH 264/464 courses.

Qualifications:

• Applicants must be motivated, reliable, organized, and proactive learners
• Must be interested in learning about EEG/ERP technique
• Must be comfortable working in a team environment
• Must have a current average of minimum 80% in Psychology courses
• For PSYCH 464, must have prior programming knowledge and experience with matlab or strong interest in learning matlab.

Benefits: You will gain a great deal of hands-on experience using Excel, Word, Power Point, SPSS, PsychoPy and matlab programming. This position will also refine your communication and interaction skills. This position is good preparation for an Honours thesis or future career in academic research or industry research and development.

How to apply: Please send an email to Dr. Roxane Itier (ritier@uwaterloo.ca) stating why you would like this position. Attached to this email should be your resumé/CV, class schedule/plan for the term you are applying, and a copy of your unofficial academic transcript from Quest.

Memory & Cognitive Neuroscience Lab

Dr. Myra Fernandes

Duties: Preparing materials and stimuli for experiments examining memory abilities and function in undergraduate students, senior citizens, individuals with compromised cognitive ability; recruiting and scheduling participants, running experiments with undergraduates, possibility of assessing cognitive function in senior citizens, data collection, data coding, data entry and management, creation of graphs, drafting ethics applications, literature searches, general lab maintenance duties, attendance at lab meetings

Time commitment: Approximately 8 – 10 hours per week for PSYCH 264/464 course or 3-4 hours/week for volunteer position

Qualifications:

• applicants must be reliable, organized, enthusiastic and hardworking
• must be comfortable working with people of all ages, and in a team environment
• must have a current average greater than 80% in Psychology courses

Benefits: You will gain a great deal of hands-on experience using Excel, Word, Power Point, SPSS and E-Prime, as well as refine your Oral and Written communication skills; good preparation for a future career in academic research or industry research & development. You will have the opportunity to attend our lab meetings and learn about current research projects and approaches in our memory lab.

How to apply: Please send an email to Dr. Myra Fernandes (mafernan@uwaterloo.ca) stating why you would like this position. Attached to this email should be your resume/cv, a Fall and/or Winter class schedule/plan, and a copy of your unofficial academic transcript from Quest.

Psychology 264 Position – Fall 2019

Developmental Psychology
Faculty Supervisors: Stephanie Denison, Katherine White

Web: https://uwaterloo.ca/infant-and-child-studies-group/

Research areas: Cognitive development and language development from early infancy to early childhood (0-6 years old).

Contact: Email our lab coordinator, at babylab@uwaterloo.ca

Duties: We are looking for psych 264 students who are eager to help out with a variety of lab tasks that may include recruiting participants from the community, assisting with in-lab studies, attending lab meetings, and assisting with additional general lab duties. You will work closely with our lab coordinator between the two labs, the Developmental Learning Lab and the Lab for Infant Development and Language.

Benefits: You will gain experience working and collaborating with local child-oriented groups in the community, in addition to working directly with infants and young children in the labs.

Time commitment: Approximately 8 hours per week

Qualifications:

- Reliable, detail-oriented, and highly-motivated students with a strong interest in developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, or language development
- Passionate about working with young children
- Preference given to students in the psychology major/honours program (prior research experience an asset, but not necessary)

Access to a vehicle is an asset.

To apply: Please send the following documents to our lab coordinator (babylab@uwaterloo.ca) and indicate the term you are applying for (e.g., Fall 2019):

1. Resume
2. Cover letter explaining your interest in this position and relevant skills
3. Your class schedule (even if it is still unofficial, with information regarding which class in your timetable you might replace with the 264)
4. Unofficial transcript

Volunteer RA

Social Psychology
Dr. Igor Grossmann (https://uwaterloo.ca/wisdom-and-culture-lab/)
Contact: Wisdom and Culture Lab at (wcl@uwaterloo.ca)

Research Areas: UW Wisdom and Culture lab examines factors that enable people to think and act wisely: How can individuals and groups adaptively resolve social conflicts? What factors foster wise reasoning? How are mental processes situated within a larger cultural context?

Duties: The RA’s will be responsible for data collection and data analysis, participant recruitment running experiments, coding data, and preparing materials for studies,

Benefits: Learn about all phases of Wisdom and Culture psychological research, and belong to a lab group dedicated to working within the field of social psychology

Time commitment: Roughly 6-10 hours a week

Qualifications: Applicants should be enthusiastic, organized, conscientious, and comfortable interacting with participants, with at least a 75% average in completed psychology courses. Prior research experience, particularly with running social psychology experiments, and using physiological measurement equipment (heartrate and respiration devices) would be an asset.

To Apply: Please email the lab at wcl@uwaterloo.ca with your resume, unofficial transcript, Spring term schedule, and please specify any relevant research or technical experience.

Volunteer RA or Psych 264/464 

Dr. Ian McGregor, Experimental Science of Human Motivations and Relations

Contact: Abdo Elnakouri, Graduate Student (abdo.elnakouri@uwaterloo.ca)

Research Areas: Motivation, Meaning, Self-Regulation

Duties: Online study programming, literature reviews, data entry, data collection, coding, participant recruitment and scheduling. Duties are subject to change. Although prior experience is preferred, training will be provided.

Benefits: Valuable laboratory work experience and skill development. For especially dedicated students, possible opportunities for further research and references are available.

Qualifications: We are interested in students who are motivated, dedication, conscientiousness, and passionate about research. Computer skills are a must and programming experience is an asset. Strong ability/desire to read and comprehend scientific literature.

Applying: Please go to this survey and fill out the required information: https://psychologyuwaterloo.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_1NdDS7hl58e1GKh

Volunteer RA or Psych 264/464

Dr. Hilary Bergsieker

Contact: digrlab@uwaterloo.ca

Research Areas: Intergroup trust and conflict; reducing bias based on race, gender, religion, sexual identity, or disability; field experiments on diversity and inclusion in STEM fields.  We ask: What conditions help our conversations, collaborations, and friendships with people from different backgrounds succeed? What steps can individuals (and institutions) take to overcome prejudice and repair trust in intergroup interactions?

Researcher assistants gain experience with both standard and advanced social psychological and social networking methods. Professor Bergsieker works directly with undergraduate research assistants, engaging them in the research process and providing personalized mentorship.

The time commitment is ideally 6-8 hours per week on average, with a minimum of 5 hours per week.

To apply, please complete the online application linked below. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, but if possible, please apply before the second week of the term when you hope to join our lab. Individuals from underrepresented backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply.

https://uwaterloo.ca/diversity-intergroup-relations-lab/joining-lab/undergraduate-ras

Volunteer RA or Psych 264/464

Dr. Abigail Scholer, Self-Regulation and Motivation Lab

Contacts: Emily Britton (e2britto@uwaterloo.ca), Abdo Elnakouri (abdo.elnakouri@uwaterloo.ca), Candice Hubley (cmhubley@uwaterloo.ca), Erik Jansen (e2jansen@uwaterloo.ca), Jessica Ross (jrross@uwaterloo.ca), or Katie Bain (ksbain@uwaterloo.ca).

Research Areas: Motivation, Goals and Self-Regulation, Communication, and Lay Beliefs.

Duties:

Basic:

• Manage participant recruitment and study schedules 
• Conduct online surveys, field studies and behavioural experiments
• Perform qualitative analysis (e.g., picture coding and linguistic analysis)

Optional depending on students’ interests:

•  Attend research training workshops (e.g. literature management, Qualtrics, SPSS)
• Review literature
• Develop your own research ideas and design studies
• Participate in biweekly research meetings/talks

Time commitment: Ideally 8 - 10 hours per week

Qualifications: 

• We need passionate and persistent students
• Other qualities: responsible, eager to learn, able to work in team and is organized
• Preferences will be given to students in psychology major program, who can make a long term commitment in the lab and have a future plan to apply for graduate school

Benefits:

• Working closely with psychology researchers and gaining hands-on research experience
• Job and graduate school application references
• Opportunity to develop your own research projects and present at academic conferences

To apply:
Please go to the below link and fill out your information:

https://uwaterloo.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4MDN9WvgSiEAdCu

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for a casual information interview shortly. If you do not receive our reply in a few weeks, probably it is because the vacancies for RAs are filled (we set a quota to ensure the quality of training). And if so, the application will be considered for your subsequent available semester.

Volunteer RA Position - Fall 2022

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Wendi Adair

Contact: Amrit Kaler

The Culture at Work Lab is recruiting volunteer research assistants to aid in creating study materials for a research project investigating codeswitching in the job interview. In order to apply for this position, you must be White or South Asian (e.g., Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi) and comfortable with being filmed. For this task, you will be provided a script and recorded answering questions as a fictional job candidate. There is potential to continue working for the lab beyond this assignment. Lab tasks may include running participants, data entry, conducting literature reviews, and preparing study materials for various ongoing projects. The time commitment for this position is approximately 5-10 hours per week. If you are interested, please email Amrit (a6kaler@uwaterloo.ca) your CV/resume and a copy of your unofficial transcript from Quest.

The Indigenous Workways project aims to increase employment and career advancement for Indigenous youth in Southwest Ontario and nationally by developing applied organizational communication tools, organizational climate best practices, and Indigenous employment and mentor networks. This participatory action research is a collaborative effort among scholars and Aboriginal Education Centres from four recognized Southwest Ontario institutions. Ultimately, the research has the goal of enabling organizations to create psychologically safe workspaces, respectful organizational communication tools, and sustainable Indigenous alumni networks. The Indigenous Workways project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence.

This position requires a Master’s degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology or related discipline. Ideally this position will be filled by someone with experience working with Indigenous organizations and community. The position is one that will support ongoing research projects.  Candidates must have some experience in administration and/or project management.

Hours: approx. 10 hrs/week, six months with potential renewal.

Roles

• Research Support
  • Participate in conducting research work by performing specific assigned tasks, such as data collection and fieldwork
  • Organize and maintain documentation, experimental records and data; including electronic files and backups
  • Assist in analyzing and interpreting experiment results (using SPSS, SAS and/or R) or research data by performing tasks such as assembly, compilation and summary of statistical and other data
  • Participate in the organization and recruitment of research participants
  • Participate in the development of research related documents, including ethics applications, journal publications and dissemination of research findings
  • Assists with special projects and other duties related to the research
  •  
• Project Coordination
  • Facilitate communication, engagement, and project activities (research related) with Indigenous Student Centres at Conestoga College, Wilfrid Laurier University, University of Windsor, and University of Waterloo
  • Annual alumni survey
    • Coordinate ethics review/updates at UWaterloo and WLU
    • Assist CC and UWindsor in ethics review as needed
    • Compile annual alumni survey data from all institutions
  • Research Participant database
    • • Be sure researchers are properly tracking all alumni contact and participation
      • Maintain secure database document
    • Work with Indigenous Student Centres to update participant database quarterly

Interested persons should contact Dr. Catherine Kwantes, Psychology Department, University of Windsor: Catherine.Kwantes@uwindsor.ca

Position: 

Part-Time Research Coordinator

Contact: 

Prof. Edith Law

Associate Professor, School of Computer Science

Director, Augmented Intelligence Lab

Email: edith.law@uwaterloo.ca

Description:

In collaboration with KW4 Ontario Health Teams, we are leading a project to design an app to help newcomers (e.g., immigrants, refugees) navigate the Canadian health and social services system, using a value sensitive design framework.  We are seeking a part-time research coordinator to help coordinate three studies (interviews, co-design, prototype app evaluation) that we are running in the next three terms (S23, F23 and W24).  

Responsibilities: 

- work with venues / organizations to distribute participant recruitment posters, emails and social media posts

- distribute, collect and process screening surveys 

- schedule study dates and locations and coordinate room booking

- communicate with participants, answer questions or re-direct their inquiries to an interpreter

- handle participant payment and associated paperwork

- (optional) participate in our research activities (e.g., attend lab meetings, assist with the study sessions, analyze data, co-author paper)

Hours:

~10-15 hours per week

Qualifications: 

There are no particular qualification requirements, though this position would be suitable for students who have great communication, organizational and project management skills, interested in Human Computer Interaction (HCI), public health research, and are fluent in English as well as another foreign language (such as Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Ukrainian, Spanish, Tigrinya, Amharic, Mandarin).  

Other Benefits:

The research coordinator will work with a team of undergraduate and graduate students in the School of Computer Science, and have the opportunity to participate in our research activities and learn more about Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and public health research.  The work hours / location is flexible, e.g., can be mostly done remotely.  The project is in collaboration with many community partners and organizations (e.g., YMCA, KDCHC), and so students will have a first-hand experience of the broader impact of this research in our community.

Pay:

~$4000 per term

How to apply:

If interested, please send your resume and cover letter to Prof. Edith Law by email (edith.law@uwaterloo.ca) by Monday April 3.