Supervising Faculty: Michele D. Levine, PhD
Contact: Dr. Michele Levine, levinem@upmc.edu
Area of Research: Women's Health, Perinatal Health and Mental Health
Description of Research: Prior to establishing the specific training opportunities for each student, we prioritize Learning about the students’ interests and goals. We then share our scientific areas of interests, guiding principles and collaborate to review the goals and expectations for the student’s work in our lab. It is our expectation that these collaborative meetings yield a specific project on one of our studies as well as a specific area of scientific focus for the student. Example lab tasks include working on recruitment and screening for clinical trials, working with analysis and generation of summaries of archival data, helping to manage participant scheduling for assessments, running participants on research tasks and general laboratory tasks. Additional tasks that match students interests with lab needs are also considered. During these initial meetings, the student is also assigned a ‘primary mentor’ in the lab that matches the interests of the student with the tasks/projects in the lab. Generally, students will meet with this primary mentor weekly in the context of a project specific meeting or lab meeting. In addition, they meet the laboratory staff member weekly to review work on tasks and projects. Additional meetings can be scheduled as needed, for example, to review posters or abstracts or when working on the students final project.
Duties of Students: In addition to literature reviews and writing on the topic of their choice, students may be involved in data management, cleaning and entering, recruitment of participants for research studies, screening of participants, running subjects through protocols, preparation of annotated bibliographies, summaries of descriptive statistics and more.
Requirements:
- Overall GPA of 3.3 or higher
- 12 credits of Psychology (including current term)
- STAT 0200/1000/1100 Statistics
- PSY 0036 Research Methods Lecture
- PSY 0037 Research Methods Lab
- Minimum two-semester commitment
Recruitment Process: When students express interest in joining the lab, they are asked to completed an application summarizing their interest in the lab and previous work experience. They also submit an unofficial transcript and resume/CV. Applications are reviewed by lab members and if there are open positions available, we offer an interview to all students. At the interview, students have the opportunity to learn more about the lab, ask questions, and describe their experience and interest in the lab.
Terms offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Number of Students: 5
Lab website: https://www.phab.pitt.edu/