The Poetics of Stop-Motion Animation

Professor: Andrea Comiskey 

Students in this course will assist in a research project on the style(s) and production processes of stop-motion animation, a cinematic art that involves the frame-by-frame manipulation of puppets and other objects. One main strand of the project explores how computer-generated imagery has been integrated into stop motion and how stop-motion logics and styles have been reproduced in computer animation. Other strands include the medium's basic visual affordances, animators' repurposing of familiar objects, and how practitioners and audiences discuss the medium.

A student researcher's work might include:

• watching films (and taking notes, making screengrabs, or making subclips);
• assisting with reviews of secondary literature;
• collecting examples of current or historical discussions of stop-motion animation;
• assisting with interviews;
• compiling filmographies;
• and helping with data management.

Prospective student participants should have an interest in animation. They should also have a basic ability to work with video and image files (or a willingness to learn how to do so). Access to Adobe Premiere Pro is a plus but not strictly required.

Interested students should email Andrea Comiskey to discuss the possibility of participation.

How many students: 1

Voting Rights in the United States

Section A: Lisa Tetrault

Did you know that American citizens have no right to vote? None. The United States is one of the only constitutional democracies in the world that does not enshrine this right in its founding charter. Not only did the nation’s founders punt on creating one, social movements have also never succeeded in creating one. Yet we hear all the time about how different groups won the vote: Black men in 1870; women in 1920; everyone else in 1965. Again, nope. So what, then, have voting rights activists won over the centuries? And how and why has an affirmative right to vote never been achieved? This book project looks to answer those questions, starting with the U.S. Constitution and working forward to the present.

I’ll happily train all students on the skills needed. Work will be largely in digital sources. Class requires your commitment to work independently, as a lot is work you have to find time do on your own to get in your weekly hours. In truth, that’s the hardest part of the class, the self-discipline. If you have that, or want to practice it, come join me in sorting out this history.

Open to up to two students.

Interested students should send an email to Professor Tetrault and include information about your interests in this project.

Environmental Justice and Human Rights in Latin America

Professor: John Soluri

The goal of this research project is to assist in the creation of a database of resources related to documenting current and historical campaigns for environmental justice in Latin America where Indigenous people, rural communities, and urban activists challenge governments, mining companies, and agribusinesses to respect their rights to healthy living and working environments. These campaigns often are supported by international organizations and activist networks.  These activists often face not only political opposition, but also violations of their human rights.  In recent years, dozens of environmental activists have died due to violence. Struggles for environmental justice therefore are about human rights as well as protecting non-human life.

This project is directed toward generating a list of case studies and activist profiles for use in an undergraduate class focused on the history of environmental activism in the Americas. The research will involve searching digital databases, media websites, and social media to identify environmental justice campaigns and human rights violations related to these campaigns. Participants can also assist in developing teaching materials for the course.  Knowledge of Spanish and/or Portuguese is very helpful but not required.

Open to one or two students.

Interested students should send an email to Professor Soluri and include information about your interests in this project.

The Art and Science of Making Medieval Manuscripts

Professor: Alexandra Garnhart-Bushakra

Making medieval manuscripts involves a type of alchemy, which bridges techniques associated today with fine artistry and scientific experimentation. Even the word manuscript emphasizes our ability to create through a physical act, where manus (“hand”) and scriptus (“written”) must come together to commit one’s ideas to the page and, eventually, posterity. Indeed, a manuscript served multiple purposes: Its text not only revealed hidden truths to its intended readers, but its illustrations, miniatures, marginalia and also lettering represented a set of skills that scribes passed down from one to another over many generations. In the pre-modern era (i.e., before the 1500s C.E.), books emerged as objects of prestige, and both their display and circulation became priorities to those fortunate enough to possess them.

In this course, students will have the opportunity to study — and ultimately, make — their own manuscripts, all while learning more about medieval attitudes towards natural history, reading cultures across the Mediterranean world, and “bestsellers” that long predated the printing press. This project will introduce students to the hands-on process of creating a manuscript from beginning to end: Students will be expected to review primary and secondary sources; to prepare materials such as historical inks, pigments, dyes, waxes and foils; to practice calligraphy and illumination design; and to learn about the history of scripts through a brief primer of paleography. Participants can also assist in the development of teaching materials for the course. Knowledge of the Greek alphabet, Latin abbreviations and/or French may be helpful, but such expertise is not necessary to success in this class.

Open to one or two students.

Interested students should send an email to Dr. Garnhart-Bushakra to discuss the possibility of participation and their goals within this project.

"Ireland" In the Global Imagination

Professor: Aidan Beatty

There is a central paradox at the heart of Irish history; even by the usual standards of small European countries, the Republic of Ireland is a small place of five million people while Northern Ireland has a population just under two million. Economically, neither of the two Irelands has ever seemed to be major sources of wealth. The Republic of Ireland is a neutral country that, since its founding in 1922, has never been at war with another country. Neither the Republic nor Northern Ireland could claim to be global powers. By any conventional global measure, Ireland is not an important country. And yet, ideas of “Ireland” clearly do matter. Upwards of thirty million Americans claim Irish ancestry; St. Patrick’s Day’s status as a major celebration of Irishness is unquestioned (it would be hard to imagine a similar excitement for a day-long celebration of any other small European national identity); caricatured conceptions of Irish pubs, Irish radicalism, Irish literature and Irish music have an outsized global reach.

My project aims to understand how romanticized, exaggerated and even outright false ideas of Irishness have been actively propagated around the world. There are currently two strands to this, both of which will lead to peer-reviewed essays. First, I am interested in the work of an Irish politician named Robert Briscoe, the first Jewish politician elected to the Irish parliament who briefly gained a minor celebrity status in the U.S. in the 1960s. I want to know how Briscoe presented himself to American audiences and how he used the seeming oddity of being an Irish/Jewish elected official to attract media attention. For this part of the project, I would help a student gain digital research skills to then find original English-language newspaper and magazine articles about Briscoe.

The second strand, is that I am interested in how left-wing writers and activists all around the world use constructed ideas about “Ireland” to understand political problems like capitalism, colonialism, political violence and migration. This would again involve me helping a student gain research skills and then finding original articles in Socialist, Anarchist, Communist and Radical Nationalist publications. Some of these publications will be available digitally, some will have to be tracked down in print via Interlibrary Loan. I would especially like help with finding and translating Russian, Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese or Spanish sources, but this research could be in any language and I would be happy to have students focus on a region or country of their choice. Knowledge of Jewish history, Irish history of left-wing history would be a plus, but not at all required.

Open to one or two students.

Interested students should send an email to Dr. Beatty and include information about your interests in this project.

Coups D'etat, Mercenaries, and US Military Exercises

Professor: John Chin

John Chin is seeking research assistants for one or more political science research projects. One set of projects involves investigating, writing historical narratives and coding data on:

1. The sordid post-World War II history of coup plots (conspiracies to depose leaders that are not actually attempted, perhaps because the regime discovered and thwarted them)
2. The pre-World War II history of coup attempts, or
3. The post-World War II history of mercenary attacks.

A second project involves coding data on U.S. joint military exercises since the 1970s to understand the evolution of U.S. military diplomacy and deterrence priorities. Other projects related to sharp power, democratic backsliding, and/or civil resistance and nonviolent revolutions may be available upon inquiry.

Interested students can email Professor John Chin.

Latin American Comics Archive

Professor: Felipe Gomez

This project involves research of Latin American comics. The course will teach the basics of Comic Book Markup Language (CBML, a TEI-based XML vocabulary) for encoding and analyzing the structural, textual, visual and bibliographic complexity of digitized comic books and related documents. Student researchers will assist in:

1. Editing, marking up and structuring digitized Latin American comics;
2. Reading and subjecting these texts to interpretation, making inferences and embarking in theoretical explorations of issues according to given criteria.

Long-term results of this project entail possible inclusion of encoded materials in the Latin American Comics Archive (LACA), an award-winning Digital Humanities project; collaboration with national and international students and researchers; and perhaps a published work (for which student participants would be acknowledged as contributors).

Open to one or more students with at least low-intermediate level reading skills in Spanish.

Interested students should send an email to Professor Gomez and include information about your interests in this project.

The Language of Pain

Professor: Seth Wiener

This interdisciplinary research looks at the exciting intersection of linguistics and medicine. Specifically, how we use language to express the severity of physical pain. The student will join a collaborative research team, which includes a linguist and pain doctor. The student will work with the team to help with the literature review on language and bodily pain. The student will also work to improve and develop questionnaires aimed at describing pain using simple pictures and words. Finally, the student will help carry out small pilot studies to test basic hypotheses related to language and pain. The ideal candidate is interested in medicine, language and/or psychology.

Open to one or two students.

Interested students should contact Professor Seth Wiener.

Promoting Equity in Mental Health Through Language Access for Immigrants

Professor: Kiyono Fujinaga-Gordon

Mental health services rely on language as the principal medium of diagnosis and treatment; patient-provider conversational alignment is consequential for immigrant health and wellbeing. Our project investigates multiple and specific facets of language assistance to inform best-practice guidelines and policy surrounding language access and interpreter services. Three key questions target:

1. Assessment of patient-provider-interpreter concordance in emotional communication
2. Comparison of patient-provider concordance in language characteristics during multilingual medical conversations, and
3. Evaluation of conversation characteristics and modality of interpreter services that yield best patient satisfaction, patient-provider alliance and psychological health outcomes for immigrant families.

For the RTC program, students will work on literature review regarding multilingual language service in mental health practice.

Open to more than one student.

Interested students can send email to Dr. Kiyono Fujinaga-Gordon to schedule an interview.

Radlab - Radical Pedagogy Lab

Professor: Candace Skibba

Traditional educational models often perpetuate systemic inequalities and limit critical engagement. Radical pedagogy, drawing from the works of Paulo Freire, bell hooks and Henry Giroux, seeks to dismantle these barriers by promoting participatory, student-centered learning experiences.

The Radical Pedagogy Lab (RadLab) is a research lab dedicated to advancing the theory and practice of radical pedagogy, with a focus on empirical research, curriculum development and community engagement. The RadLab explores methods that are being carried out in higher ed classrooms with the goal of being inclusive. Preliminary research suggests that there is very little in the way of student voices regarding how they feel the classroom (documentation, space, instructor, assignments, assessments, rubrics, feedback, etc.) contributes or does not contribute to their feeling of safety and belonging. For this reason, in the RadLab students and faculty work together to collate a robust bibliography referencing other research that has been carried out. This initial research then informs the design and implementation of peer-to-peer surveys, interviews and focus groups that aim to understand the student experience of inclusivity in the classroom. Students shape the Lab's understanding of current bibliography, topics that invite conflict and assignments that seem oppressive. This RadLab serves as a hub for transformative educational practices that empower marginalized communities and promote equity in learning environments.

Qualitative Data Analysis on AI Prompts

Professor: Bonnie Youngs

In spring 2024, two Dietrich faculty carried out a social sciences course research project on AI use for developing reading and comprehension skills. Much of the data have been compiled, but there remains work to be done on a qualitative analysis of student prompts. We have discovered trends in the data, but have yet to work on how to analyze it. During the semester, the students and Dr. Youngs will work on identifying different methods for analyzing the qualitative data and combining it with the previous data analyses in order to get a clearer picture of how first-year students used AI in the course. This course does not have any prerequisites, except for a desire to do extensive research, think of different ways to approach data analysis, good communication skills and a commitment to doing timely work. There will be times during our weekly meetings when we will be joined by the second faculty member via Zoom who now works at another university.

Open to two students.

Contact Dr. Bonnie Youngs.

Learning Sciences: How Do People Learn?

Professors: Paulo Carvallo, Kenneth Koedinger

How do people learn? What keeps students motivated to learn? How do students make learning decisions and what gets in the way? And how can we leverage our scientific understanding of the learning process to improve educational outcomes?

This course involves hands-on experience answering these questions. You will contribute to ongoing projects as part of a team of researchers working to develop and run laboratory and classroom studies, analyze data from studies and existing large educational data and contribute to the development of computational models of human learning and motivation.

Interested students can email Professor Paul Carvalho.

DYAD Study & Empathetic Connections Study

Professor: Kasey Creswell

Projects:

1. Drinking in Young Adult Duos (DYAD) Study: The purpose of this research study is to gain a better understanding of alcohol use in couples. Young adult couples will be asked to come into the lab to fill out surveys and drink an alcoholic beverage together.
2. Empathetic Connections: The purpose of this research study is to create a new lab-based interactive paradigm to assess empathy.

Open to multiple students? Yes, but we want to have a strong GPA from high school or first semester at CMU (i.e., 3.5 or above).

Contact: Please email Dr. Creswell's lab manager, Greta Lyons.

Raising Anti-Racist Youth

Professor: Catarina Vales

Millions of children around the world grow up in racialized societies – societies organized along racial lines historically, politically, and economically. It is well known that children growing up in racialized societies develop racialized thinking patterns – they come to represent the socially constructed notion of race as a relevant category for making predictions about individuals, interpreting ambiguous evidence, and making friendship choices. These racialized thinking patterns persist beyond childhood, and cause harms to individuals and communities. In this project, we try to understand not only how racialized thinking develops during childhood, but also how it can be changed with experience and learning. Towards this goal, we study (1) how racial diversity in picture books children are exposed to may change racial biases in preschool-age children; and (2) how conversations about historic roots and present-day manifestations of systemic racism may help challenge racialized thinking patterns in school-age children.

Open to more than one student.

Questions should be sent to Dr. Catarina Vales.

The Role of Metacognition in the Development of Reading and Comprehension

Professor: Erik Thiessen

Children’s cognitive skills develop rapidly from toddlerhood to primary school.  Between 3 and 6, children’s communication, problem solving skills, formal reasoning abilities, and social behavior all make rapid strides toward maturity.  One of the key components of this developmental process is the ability to monitor one’s own thinking, referred to as “metacognition”: thinking about thinking.  This skill continues to be used throughout the lifespan, and individual differences in metacognition are predictive of outcomes in a wide variety of domains.  Our goal in this project is to examine when and how children use metacognition, in particular in relation to feedback during problem solving, and comprehension of stories and conversations.  This project involves a wide variety of different tasks, including creation of stimuli, interacting with children, collecting and analyzing data, and communicating results with other members of the lab and the university community..

Section E

Professor: Michael Tarr

Research on natural and artificial systems aimed at building better models of high-level vision and explicating the organizational principles of human visual cortex.

Depolarizing Campus Debates and Improving Student Reasoning and Communication at Scale

Professor: Simon Cullen

This course provides hands-on research experience with SwayBeta, an experimental chat platform that connects people who disagree about controversial topics and uses AI to facilitate better discussions between them.

Sway is part of a research project on improving reasoning and communication, mitigating self-censorship among students, and depolarizing campus discussions and political debates. Students can make meaningful contributions to ongoing projects related to Sway by assisting in everything from app and web design to user experience research, end-to-end testing, data analysis and fine-tuning frontier LLMs like GPT-4o.

After reading the materials available at www.swaybeta.ai, students should propose how they can contribute to the project. For example, students might suggest:

• analyzing de-identified chat data from real human-to-human discussions
• increasing the sophistication and/or accuracy of any aspect of Sway’s AI
• improving the user experience in some way
• developing educational resources to help instructors integrate Sway into classes
• scaling to reach more students nationwide

This is a chance for students from a variety of backgrounds, including psychology, HCI, CS, stats, design and more, to make a significant contribution to research projects that impact thousands of students.

Open to enrolling more than one student in this course.

Interested students should email Professor Simon Cullen with a brief statement of interest: cullen@cmu.edu. Please be sure to mention any previous relevant coursework or other experience.

Navigating Social Identities in Social Interactions

Professor: Michael Trujillo

Students will be introduced to the development and formation of social interactions amongst marginalized communities. The research examines how stigma contributes to health outcomes and social functioning and the underlying mechanisms that link stigma to these outcomes with a focus on physiological, affective, behavioral, and cognitive domains. Students will read articles on the topic, develop technical skills through the use of psychophysiology equipment, and have hands-on experience assisting with research studies related to this topic. There will also be opportunities to examine, collect, and interact with data throughout the experimental process.

Interested students should contact Professor Trujillo.

Auditory Perception

Professor: Laurie Heller

This course provides students with research experience in the area of auditory perception. Students will assist with research projects in the Auditory Perception Laboratory, obtaining hands-on experience with various aspects of conducting research. Students will gain experience in study design, participant recruitment & scheduling, working as an experimenter, data collection, and data management/analysis including acoustic analysis and possibly sound recording and sound synthesis.

For example, students may conduct an analysis of the acoustics of sounds which have similar perceptual qualities, or they may run an experiment in which listeners judge the causes of sounds, or listeners may do tasks seemingly unrelated to the sounds they hear and show evidence of unconscious priming when sounds and words (or gestures) are related.

Open to more than one student.

Contact Professor Heller by email, and include information about your interest in this project. Students with a special interest in sound synthesis and/or matlab programming should bring attention to that interest. 

Section K

Professor: J. David Cresswell

Description forthcoming.

Section A

Professor: Julie Downs

This course provides students with research training and experience in the area of decision science. Students will get training with commonly used tools including Qualtrics for building online surveys, spreadsheets for managing data, producing basic statistical output, and an introduction to the statistical package R for data visualization and reports. Most training will happen through self-paced tutorials, with the opportunity to put these skills to work helping with ongoing projects or creating a sample project of their own. Motivated students can turn this training experience into ongoing independent research in future semesters with relevant faculty. 

Section B

Professor: Danny Oppenheimer

With permission of instructor only, this is a one-on-one research apprenticeship in which students get hands on experience working in an active behavioral research lab.  Students will be trained in various experimental protocols, and are expected to act and perform at professional standards while engaging in cutting edge research that will ultimately be published in peer-reviewed journals to contribute to the scientific literature on human behavior.