Dr. Danming An is unable to accept new graduate students in the upcoming application cycle. However, other faculty in the Department of Psychology at Lehigh University may have the capacity, and we have a very collaborative developmental psychology program.
Learn more about the MS and PhD programs in the Department of Psychology at Lehigh University here.
Interested in gaining research experience? CALiCo Lab may offer some opportunities.
We are looking for enthusiastic, reliable, and detail-oriented research assistants who are interested in working with children and families. The research activities we can offer depend on the time and stage of the studies, but in the next semesters, we need help on the following:
Data entry and cleaning (questionnaire and interview data collected from international studies)
Literature review for behavioral and questionnaire measures of children's social and emotional development
Preparing and pilot-testing the behavioral and questionnaire measures
Recruiting and scheduling participants
Conduct experiments and in-lab observational sessions
Coding and entry of observed children's behaviors
For undergraduate students at Lehigh, we offer class credits for PSYC 161. For post-bac students and students outside Lehigh, we are currently unable to offer paid positions, but may be able to offer volunteering opportunities.
If you are interested, please fill out our application form and email a copy of your resume/curriculum vitae to daa422+ra.application@lehigh.edu.
Q: What can I gain from working in the CALiCo Lab?
A: Our lab conducts research on children's social and emotional development with a contextual perspective, both locally in the Lehigh Valley and in international contexts (Kenya, China). At CALiCo, you will be able to gain experience in observational and experimental data collection and coding of families' and children's behaviors, managing questionnaire assessments, and assisting with literature searches, with the lens of culture and context. Interested and motivated research assistants may also get involved on conference presentations and posters.
We hope your research experience at CALiCo will be beneficial for your future career. Students are encouraged to discuss their career goals with Dr. An and making plans together. This is also why we ask you to fill out the application form -- we would like to know you a bit more and figure out what would work the best for you.
Q: What are the CALiCo Lab's expectations for me?
A: Working with families and children to collect scientific data requires warmth, patience, and attention to detail. Working with a research team requires a lot of collaborations, so it would be great if you are a good communicator who can work with people with diverse backgrounds, opinions, and personalities. Punctuality and work ethics are also necessary, so that your labmates can rely on you.
Further, research is not always about discovering fancy or exciting things -- many important findings are built on the cumulation of small and repetitive work. For this reason, we hope you are enthusiastic about our goal of understanding and improving the lives of families and children, and can see the values of the various activities necessary to the functioning of a psychology lab, whether they feel "exciting" or not.
Q: Do you require any previous experiences or a minimum GPA?
A: We do not require any previous experiences or a minimum GPA for you to work in our lab. If you have worked in other research labs before, have worked with children, or have a high GPA in psychology -- great, but these are not a must. Everyone has to start somewhere, and we are happy to help you grow. However, when you join our lab, we do want to ensure that your interests, ability, and needs align what we do in our lab, and will provide suggestions accordingly.