UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

Are you interested in human emotion, the brain, and how they relate to criminal behavior and aggression? This may be the research opportunity for you.

Below we provide information for students interested in a Psych 290 or volunteer research assistant opportunity in our research lab.

Types of Activities Performed by Research Assistants

Research assistants (RAs) are involved in helping run subjects and entering data for different studies investigating aggressive behavior, substance use, emotion and psychophysiology, and psychopathic personality or antisocial (criminal) behavior. RAs typically are involved in multiple studies, unless they are asked to work on only one.

Requirements for being a research assistant

RAs typically have GPAs of at least 3.5. We expect RAs to be responsible and timely-if you have trouble meeting commitments or are chronically late, this may not be the research lab for you. Research assistants doing a Psych 290 typically sign up for 2 to 3 credit hours, or the equivalent of 9-10 hours of work a week. Some weekends are involved, but not very often. We prefer a commitment of at least two semesters, due to the fact that we do substantial training of RAs during the beginning of the semester. We prefer not to have to train students every semester. Please talk to us about any or all of these things if you have further questions or concerns.

Our research lab meetings are being held on Fridays at 1pm in Fall 2012. It is imperative that you can make lab meetings each week and keep that time slot open in your schedule. Lab meetings are extremely informative and useful for your educational training and provide background information on the research we are conducting. In future semesters, always ask when lab meetings are being held if you are applying to be a 290 or research assistant in the lab.

Interested students should complete the Research Assistant/290 Form. It can be downloaded in Word format from here. You can email it to everona@illinois.edu.