Work-Study Research Assistant Program

Faculty Name: Sandra Chafouleas

Faculty Department: Educational Psychology

General Research Focus: This position entails working with Dr. Chafouleas and her research team, with specific emphasis on tasks for the UConn Collaboratory on School and Child Health (CSCH; see http://csch.uconn.edu). The mission of the Collaboratory on School and Child Health (CSCH) is to facilitate innovative and impactful connections across research, policy, and practice arenas to advance equity in school and child health. CSCH is committed to anti-racist work that prioritizes inclusion, reduces disparities, and creates systemic change.

Brief Position Description: CSCH researchers acknowledge that a whole child lens that integrates academics and health in serving students leads to better student outcomes across domains (academic, social, emotional, behavioral, physical). Although CSCH is engaged in many scholarly activities, the primary job tasks for this position include research dissemination activities across areas related to school and child health. The person may interact with multiple team members and CSCH affiliates, with the intent to facilitate work to synthesize and disseminate information on evidence-informed policy and practices (e.g. what are best practices for increasing physical activity?, what has the policy impact been on changes to school nutrition programs?) in multi-media formats (e.g., brief user-friendly reports, podcasts), through conference presentations, and at networking events.

Many opportunities are available with this position. The research assistant will engage with faculty from across schools and colleges, providing exposure to a diverse research portfolio. The research assistant may be assigned to work specifically with one or more projects, assisting research staff on various tasks such as data summaries, literature syntheses, and organizing materials. For example, two key CSCH projects are Feel Your Best Self (feelyourbestself.org), a freely accessible toolkit for supporting caregivers in teaching kids emotion-focused coping skills, and the CT WSCC Partnership, a CDC-funded project to support implementation of whole child policies and practices in schools. The research assistant may work with team members on preparing new materials to add to the Feel Your Best Self portfolio or supporting activities of the CT WSCC Partnership.

A "Student Research Review Assistant - 205" will assist faculty in research effort by conducting review of literature and subject material specific to research topics. A student in this position may:

• Compile a list of possible references
• Extract information from sources
• Organize information
• Read and summarize related literature
• Look up, check, and format references
• Provide feedback on report structure and content
• Proofread and edit reports
• Collaborate with other team members on all tasks
• Conduct brief interviews with researchers and school personnel engaged in evidence-informed school and child health topics
• Assist with dissemination of findings
• Create or provide feedback on visuals and infographics about findings
• Attend research team meetings
• Perform miscellaneous duties as directed