Work-Study Research Assistant Program

Faculty Name: Alexandra Paxton

Faculty Department: Psychological Sciences

General Research Focus:

The dyscord lab focuses on how people communicate and work together. We use a variety of research methods—including eyetracking, motion-tracking, computer vision, touch-screen games, online games, and driving simulators—to quantitatively analyze the dynamics of human interaction.

Brief Postion Description:

This WSRAP posting is for a research assistant to assist primarily with data science and/or programming activities in the lab (including coding experiments, posting online experiments, analyzing/visualizing data, and documenting/maintaining lab code). As part of this research assistantship, students will gain valuable experience at the intersection of data science and psychology; students will also improve their real-world teamwork and communication skills by working closely with programmers and non-programmers to meet the lab’s research goals. (Note: If you have an interest in this research but do not have significant data science and/or programming experience, see other posting by faculty Alexandra Paxton.)

This research assistant (RA) will learn about and practice scientific programming. This will include helping set up experiments using programming (including in-lab and online experiments), assisting with data cleaning and preparation (like visualization and looking for errors), and sharing data and code in accordance with open science principles (with documentation and GitHub). If the RA has statistical experience, it may also be possible to help with data analysis. The RA will build time management, communication, and teamwork skills by working with other undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty to meet lab goals. As part of the lab, the RA will have the opportunity to learn more career, scientific, and academic skills through regular lab meetings. In addition, the lab will work with the RA to identify additional skills of interest for the RA and will work with the RA to design opportunities to build those skills (to the degree that the lab is capable of helping with them).

Job Description:

A Student Human Behavioral Research Assistant - 204 will assist faculty in human research efforts. A student in this position may:

   - Create and/or maintain lab code
   - Create and/or maintain documentation for lab code
   - Create, debug, and test code for running in-person and online experiments
   - Run and monitor online experiments
   - Work with other lab members to meet lab goals
   - Collect, code/plot, and analyze data
   - Organize, analyze, and communicate data
   - Read and summarize related literature
   - Attend training sessions and staff meetings
   - Prepare content for the lab website and assist with website development
   - Perform miscellaneous duties as directed