Community Research Exploring Adolescent Resilience Lab (CREAR Lab)

Supervising Faculty: Andrea S. Medrano, Ph.D.

Contact: Sofia Adame (CREAR Lab Project Coordinator), sofia.adame@pitt.edu

Area of Research: risk and resilience, Latino/a families, gender-based violence, academic and psychological well-being, Latin America (Mexico, Puerto Rico, Honduras)

Description of Research: The Community Research Exploring Adolescent Resilience (CREAR) lab is oriented towards identifying factors that contribute to adolescents’ optimal well-being and resilience in the face of contextual risk factors, with a particular focus on community settings. Aims of this research include identifying factors that may act as protective in the face of violence (i.e., community violence exposure, sexual harassment, interpersonal violence). Protective factors of interest include cultural values like familismo, and dimensions of parent-adolescent relationships like parent-adolescent communication and parental involvement. As of Fall 2024, CREAR Lab is actively collecting data in Mexico for three separate, but related studies focused on gender-based violence, community violence exposure, discrimination, anxiety, depression, PTSD, as well as qualitatively understanding the experiences of violence-exposed Mexican youth and university students. Much more information about our current projects is available here: https://www.andreacrearlab.com/

Duties of Students: Students will attend lab meetings and complete scheduled “lab hours” in our Sennott Square lab space. Lab tasks and responsibilities will include completing readings and participating actively in lab meetings, conducting literature reviews, compiling readings in Zotero, conducting annotated bibliographies, checking qualitative interview transcriptions for accuracy, and completing various lab-related administrative tasks. We will discuss and provide education about the broad range of methods we use in our project, including qualitative interviewing, survey-based studies—paper and tablet surveys—and the integration of mixed methods. Undergraduate students will work closely with the lab manager, project coordinator, graduate students, and other undergraduate students, and will also interact with Dr. Medrano through regular lab meetings.

Requirements:

  • Overall GPA of 3.0 or higher
  • 12 credits of Psychology (including current term)
  • STAT 0200/1000/1100 - Statistics
  • PSY 0036 and 0037- Research Methods Lecture and Lab

Additional Requirements: We require an interview with the lab administrative assistant and/or project coordinator and will conduct a holistic review of applicants. Additional requirements include:

  • Proficiency with basic computing tasks (Microsoft Word, Excel, PPT)
  • Attention to detail.
  • Superb communication.
  • Availability for at least 2 terms, and ability to commit to at least 2 credits per term.
  • Proficiency in Spanish a plus, but not required.

Terms Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer

Number of Students: Up to 4 students