Interpersonal Perception and Social Cognition Lab

IPSC Research Assistants

If you would like to be given consideration as a volunteer research assistant for the 2024-2025 academic year, please follow the instructions below.

If you are thinking of pursuing graduate school in psychology or in a related discipline, you will often need several letters of recommendation. In addition, research-intensive programs will often only accept students with extensive research experience. If you are looking to gain research experience, or are just interested in developing skills and/or determining whether psychology is the right field for you, you will likely want to apply to become a volunteer research assistant.

Research assistants (RAs) are exposed to several stages of the research process. RAs in our lab might be asked to help recruit and run participants, develop stimuli to be used in studies, enter or code data, conduct literature searches to be entered into our research database and/or edit pictures for our face database using PhotoShop. Students are usually matched with a graduate student or senior undergraduate student within the lab and work closely with that student on a specific research project. Although the majority of our RAs are volunteers, occasionally there are also paid research assistant positions available. Depending on the required qualifications, first priority for these positions is given to students who already have research experience in the IPSC lab. In addition to gaining research experience as a volunteer RA, you might want to consider applying to become an independent study student. Again, priority is given to students with experience in the lab.

Students accepted to work in the lab must be willing to devote a minimum of 5 to 10 hours (preferably consecutive hours) per week to the lab, and are expected to attend scheduled lab meetings. In addition, students should have a minimum of a "B+/A" average and should be able to work independently and as part of a team. Computer skills, experience with PhotoShop, and/or experience working with children are assets and should be highlighted in your email application. Please email Dr. Steele (steeleje@yorku.ca) and Erik Allen (eallen2@yorku.ca) a copy of your resume and unofficial transcript as email attachments.

Once we hear from you, we will be in touch to set up a time to meet if we are looking for additional research assistants with your qualifications. If you have not heard back from us, and remain interested, please feel free to be back in touch at the start of a new term when new positions may have opened up. Due to the volume of requests that we receive we unfortunately cannot reply to all applicants. If you do not hear back from us after a few attempts, it is likely that all positions have been filled.

We strive to create a lab culture that values, respects, and supports each student’s perspectives and contributions, and that aims to ensure that each lab member is able to reach their full research potential. We recognize that systemic racism serves as an ongoing barrier to equity, diversity, and inclusion among BIPOC students. We also recognize that discrimination based on race, religion, age, gender and gender identity, physical and mental disabilities, and among LBGTQ2+ community members continues. We welcome and encourage the diverse perspectives and lived experiences of our student body and broader society and we want these voices represented in the research that we conduct in the lab. As such, we particularly encourage students from the communities noted above to apply to join our research lab.