Undergraduate Research Assistant positions

Principal Investigator: Dr. Jonathan Oakman

Graduate students: Alex Milovanov, Katie Finch, Sarena Daljeet, Carla Rumeo

Lab: 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.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Christine Purdon

Graduate Students: Erin Bowman, Tyler Eschenwecker

Research and Duties:

We are aiming to recruit one research assistant to help us code interviews about how people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) experienced the treatment they had at a hospital clinic. Erin is examining the experience they had of an internal voice or dialogue with the OCD voice. Tyler is examining the barriers and facilitators to treatment, as well as the lived experience of going through OCD treatment. Your role will be to code the interviews for patterns and themes using a framework that each of us have devised. We may also ask you for feedback regarding the framework. We will teach you how to approach coding the interviews. You will code the interviews in one of the Purdon lab rooms, so you will need to be able to work in the Psychology, Anthropology, and Sociology building on campus for this position. This research is qualitative, so you do not need a statistical background.

Qualifications:

• Conscientious students who are enthusiastic and curious about clinical psychology
• Ability to recognize patterns between abstract concepts
• Do not need prior research or statistics experience
• 75% average in psychology courses

Time commitment:

• 5 hours every week until coding is completed
• Starting May 2025 until the beginning of September

Benefits:

You will gain knowledge related to people's experience of OCD and how OCD impacts their lives. This knowledge would be a fantastic background for people who are interested in pursuing graduate studies in clinical psychology. Qualitative research is also becoming more popular, and this research assistantship will give you experience analyzing qualitative data. Coding is also often used in mixed-method approaches whenever there are open-ended questions. This experience would add to your breadth of research knowledge outside of the quantitative knowledge you are getting in the classroom. Finally, you will gain graduate students as contacts who would be happy to help you with questions about and applications to graduate school.

To Apply:

Please send an email to both Erin (erin.bowman@uwaterloo.ca) and Tyler (tjeschen@uwaterloo.ca) containing your academic CV, cover letter, and transcript by no later than April 25^th, 2025. In your cover letter, please describe any relevant research or work experience, your research interests, your career goals, and the project on which you would prefer to work.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Evan Risko

Lab: Cognition and Natural Behaviour Laboratory

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 to €“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

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Sam Johnson

Lab: Decision, Inference, and Cognitive Economics (DICE) Lab

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

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. Roxane Itier

Lab: Face Processing & Social Cognition Lab

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. Accepting applications for Fall 2025 now.

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 resume/CV, class schedule/plan for the term you are applying, and a copy of your unofficial academic transcript from Quest.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Krista Kelly

Lab: Vision and Neurodevelopment Lab

Contact: Dr. Krista Kelly, krista.kelly@uwaterloo.ca

Positions available starting Fall 2025:

• Volunteers
• Research apprenticeships (Psych 264/464)
• Honors thesis students (Psych 499)

Research: The VAN lab is located at the School of Optometry and Vision Science. Using multiple techniques (psychophysics, standardized assessments, eye tracking, body tracking), we investigate the consequences of childhood eye conditions such as amblyopia (lazy eye) and strabismus (eye turn) on:

• Eye movements
• Reading
• Motor Skills

Duties:

• Create and test experiments
• Attend weekly lab meetings
• Recruit and schedule participants
• Assist grad students with in-lab studies and data collection
• Analyze eye movement and body movement data
• General lab maintenance

Time commitment: Approximately 5-10 hours per week, depending on position

Benefits:

• Participate in all aspects of research
• Gain experience in child vision assessment and eye movements
• Experience working in a research laboratory
• Learn critical research skills (programming, design, data collection and processing, statistics)
• Potential opportunity to apply for graduate positions
• Potentially co-author abstracts and manuscripts

Qualifications:

• Highly-motivated, organized, reliable
• Able to work in a team
• Strong interest in research, and vision, and child development
• Passionate about working with children
• Preference given to those in the psychology major/honours program
• Research experience not necessary but an asset

How to apply: Please send the following documents to Dr. Krista Kelly (krista.kelly@uwaterloo.ca) and indicate the position and term you are applying for:

1. Resume
2. Cover letter explaining your interest and skills
3. Unofficial transcript

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Igor Grossmann

Lab: Wisdom and Culture Lab

Contact: 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: Research Assistants 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 (heart rate and respiration devices) would be an asset.

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

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Hilary Bergsieker

Lab: Diversity and Intergroup Relations Lab

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?

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

Time Commitment: 6-8 hours per week on average, with a minimum of 5 hours per week.

How 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.