Section A, Professors Alex Reinhart, David Brown and Gordon Weinberg

Writing in Statistics, from Novice Students to Expert Professionals: Quantitative Analysis of Text Data
Students in statistics and data science courses are often asked to write data analysis reports and presentations about their work, but communicating statistical methods and results to non-expert audiences is a very difficult task. Students gradually learn the component skills as they proceed through their courses -- but if we more clearly understood how expert writing is different from student writing, we could perhaps better help students become experts. To do this, we must understand the structure of their writing, not just grammatically but based on the function of each sentence in describing statistical methods and conclusions.

In this project, students will work with a large corpus of student and expert statistical writing. They will assist in categorizing and labeling texts, evaluating the purpose of sentences, and conducting descriptive analysis of the corpus.

Students should have taken prior statistics courses, such as 36-200, 36-202, or more advanced courses, and have interest in text or writing.

Open to up to two students.

Interested students should contact Alex Reinhart.

Section A, Professor Lisa Tetrault

Voting Rights in the United States
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.

Section B, Professor Christopher Phillips

The History of Biostatistics
This project involves tracing technical changes in statistical procedures for making inferences about causality over time. From the 1890s to the present, statisticians have tried to find new ways to get around the age-old problem that correlation doesn't imply causation. In medicine this problem was particularly vexing, as questions about what therapy worked, or what vaccine was more effective, had both ethical, financial, and practical consequences for millions of people. Students will be reading statistics articles from the 1890s through the 1950s, tracing specifically how regression, correlation, inference testing, and data modeling have changed over time. Some knowledge of these statistical ideas required; interest in the history of medicine a plus.

Open to more than 1 student, but not more than 3.

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

Section C, Professor John Soluri

Environmental Justice and Human Rights in Latin America
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.

Section D, Professor Ezelle Sanford III

Mapping Segregated Medicine
As part of a larger project tracing how African Americans used St. Louis’s Homer G. Phillips Hospital (1937-1979) to engage in political, social, and economic struggles for equality and full citizenship in the United States, “Mapping Segregated Medicine” is a digital history project designed to chart the greater record of what historian Vanessa Northington Gamble calls the “Black Hospital Movement” across the twentieth century. Using GIS technology, this project maps important health institutions that served Black communities in the Jim Crow era and overlays them with demographic data from the US census.

In visual form, this project reveals the impact of American healthcare’s desegregation in the 1960s. Analyzing the impact of hospital closures and mergers amid an increasingly privatized hospital system, this project attempts to answer the following questions: What did the network of healthcare institutions available to African Americans during the period of racial segregation look like across the United States over time? To what extent did the network of African American-established and Black-serving institutions spread across the United States? What happened to this network of health institutions after American hospitals were desegregated in the 1960s?

“Mapping Segregated Medicine” is intended to be used as a teaching tool to complement my larger book project. Mapping this institutional network will provide new insights on an extensive African American health network in the Jim Crow era. It illustrates the extent to which segregation impacted where African Americans could obtain healthcare and enhances our understanding of how shifting African Americans populations themselves played a role in shaping the development of American healthcare.

Developing Mapping Segregated Medicine offers opportunities for undergraduate research and teaching. Undergraduate students will be given opportunities to engage in historical research, data management, and develop new ways to use digital tools for research and presentation. 

Student Research Roles:

• Review Primary and Secondary Sources
• Research and Collect information about historical Black-serving hospitals
• Digitize primary sources
• Opportunities to learn about and use GIS mapping tools
• Research at the intersection of African American history and history of medicine.

Open to more than one student.

Interested students should email Professor Sanford and include information about your interests in this project.

Section E, Professor Carl Kubler

Research Topics in Asian American History: Chinatowns
“Chinatowns” have a long but often tumultuous history in the United States, as residents and outsiders alike have endeavored to navigate and delineate the relationship between these immigrant communities and their environs. This research training course will let student participants develop their research skills and knowledge base through work on two projects centered on New York City’s Manhattan Chinatown: one project on the history of immigrant children’s experiences of cross-cultural engagement and identity formation in the neighborhoods intersecting Chinatown and Little Italy in the first half of the twentieth century; and another on the underappreciated impact of the September 11th attacks on Manhattan Chinatown. Student responsibilities will include reviewing primary and secondary sources, basic data entry and analysis tasks (transcribing information from handwritten records into Excel and analyzing it), and researching and collecting historical information on public libraries, schools, and other institutions that served Chinatown communities.

Open to one student.

Interested students should please contact Professor Kubler to discuss their interests.

Section A, Professor Simon Cullen
Professor Cullen is seeking research assistants for three current research projects:

(1) Empirical investigation of how to facilitate better group discussions on controversial topics 
At root, moderating a discussion involves distributing a scarce resource—namely, the total time available for speaking to the group. But even trained moderators usually can't access the information needed to promote really great discussions. Indeed, whenever a group of people have a discussion—in classrooms, faculty meetings, conferences, boardrooms, the UN, etc.—they face a problem: Who gets to speak and when? The most common solution—a moderator selects from among people who've raised their hands—seems terrible for many reasons. How do different moderation conventions affect learning, problem solving, and decision making, and how can we tell? This project will investigate how different moderation conventions affect the quality of group discussion. I hypothesize that automated discussion moderation—and especially what I call “mixed discussion markets”— can dramatically improve the quality of group discussions.

(2) Test of Different Techniques to Depolarize Political Debate in the US
Test of different techniques to depolarize political debate in the US — student researchers will learn to develop and test experimental stimuli, and to code and analyze chat transcript data for natural language processing; students may also have opportunities to analyze study data.

(3) Develop and Test Techniques to Improve the Quality of US Intelligence Analysts' Reasoning Capacities
Develop and test techniques to improve the quality of US Intelligence Analysts' reasoning capacities — student researchers will learn to design empirical studies that test practical interventions for enhancing general and probabilistic reasoning skills of the sort that are most important to the US Intelligence Community.

Interested students should contact Professor Cullen.

Section B, Professor Christina Bjorndahl

Speech Production
In this course, students will gain experience running speech production experiments, working closely with the instructor. Students will gain hands-on experience with various stages of the research process, including study design, recruiting and running participants, data collection, and data processing. Depending on student interest and experience, students may also be involved with study design, particularly if they have familiarity with a language other than English. For example, a project being carried out in Spring ’24 examines how altering auditory feedback influences speaker production. This experimental paradigm allows for an exploration of speech motor control. The current project is restricted to English, but motivated students may work with the instructor to design a similar study on a language other than English as a way to probe how motor control interfaces with cross-linguistic differences in phonological systems.

Open to more than one student. 

Questions should be directed to Professor Bjorndahl.

Section A, Professor Felipe Gomez

Latin American Comics Archive
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: a) editing, marking up, and structuring digitized Latin American comics; b) 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.

Section B, Professor Seth Wiener

The Language of Pain
This new interdisciplinary study will look at the interaction of linguistics and physical pain. We are specifically interested in how one uses oral and written language to communicate their bodily pain. The student will help with the literature review to first understand previous research in this domain. 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 student.

Interested students should contact Professor Seth Wiener.

Section C, Professor Kiyono Fujinaga-Gordon

Language Socialization Research on Japanese as a Heritage Language
The goal of this project is to investigate the ways Japanese heritage families living in the different communities in U.S. use language and conversation to convey ethical values surrounding gender identity, gender roles, and sexual orientation across generations. For the 2024 Spring semester, I will have survey data from Japanese heritage speakers from the U.S. I would like to analyze this data either qualitatively or quantitatively with a student.

You do not need to know Japanese for this part of the project.

Open to one student.

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

You do not need to prepare a resume or CV. 

Section A, Professor John Chin

Coup Plots, Coups D'etat, and US Military Exercises
John Chin is seeking research assistants for one or more political science research projects. One project involves investigating 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). A second project involves research and writing historical narratives coup attempts before World War II. A third project involves coding data on U.S. Joint Military Exercises since the 1970s. Other projects related to self-coups, democratic backsliding, and/or civil resistance and nonviolent revolutions may be available upon inquiry.

Interested students can email Professor John Chin.

Section A, Professors Paulo Carvalho and Ken Koedinger

Learning Sciences: How do people learn?
How do people learn? 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 an ongoing project as part of a team of researchers working to develop and run laboratory and classroom studies, analyze data from studies and large data, and contribute to the development of computational models of how humans learn.

Open to 2 students.

Interested students can contact Paulo Carvalho.

Section B, Professor Kasey Creswell

Alcohol Use and Abuse
This course provides students with research experience in the area of alcohol addiction. Students will have the opportunity to help with several ongoing studies, including a large, federally-funded clinical trial examining responses to alcohol consumption and the development of alcohol use disorder symptoms. Major responsibilities will include helping to do the following: recruit and schedule research participants, run participants through research protocols, prepare materials for research studies, code behavioral data from videos, perform literature searches, and input data. Students are also required to attend a one hour weekly lab meeting, where we will read and discuss papers related to alcohol addiction.

Open to more than one student. 

Interested students: Send an email to Professor Kasey Crewell’s lab manager, Greta Lyons and include mention of this course number (85-198), your current GPA, your major, and information about your interests in this lab.

Section C, Professor Catarina Vales

Raising Anti-Racist Youth
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.

Section D, Professor Erik Thiessen

Storytelling, Communication, and Learning in Language Acquisition
Language is perhaps the signature cognitive achievement of our species, and few aspects of language are more fundamental than the ability to communicate via stories.  The goal of this project is to understand the emergence of children’s storytelling and linguistic competence.  We will approach this goal with a variety of different methodologies, including behavioral studies, analyses of recorded conversations, and investigation of the kinds of stories and storytelling opportunities that children receive.  This project requires no prior experience, and will provide students with an opportunity to learn all relevant skills.  Additionally, students will attend a weekly lab meeting where we will discuss ongoing tasks and relevant literature.

This project is open to more than one student.

Contact Professor Thiessen by email and include information about your interest in this project.

Section F, Professor Brad Mahon

Using the Tools of Big Data to Understand Recovery From Brain Injury
The goal of this course will be to involve students in 1) a large literature review of behavioral consequences of stroke and surgery to remove tumors, 2) retrieve primary MRI and behavioral datasets from the literature, 3) preparing those data for deposition on open science platforms and 4) analysis of the resulting database.

Open to more than one student.

Interested students should email Professor Brad Mahon.

Section G, Professor Vicki Helgeson

Coping with Chronic Illness and Other Stressors
Students will be introduced to the topic of how people adjust to chronic illness (e.g., diabetes, cancer) within the field of social and health psychology. The research focuses on individual difference factors (e.g., illness identity) as well as relational factors (e.g., communal coping) that influence adjustment. Students will read articles on the topic and have hands-on experience conducting research related to this topic. There may be opportunities to examine data on people with chronic illness, collect data on people with chronic illness, or conduct laboratory research on healthy people coping with stress, including discrimination.

Interested students can email Professor Vicki Helgeson.

Section H, Professor Simon Cullen
Professor Cullen is seeking research assistants for three current research projects:

(1) Empirical investigation of how to facilitate better group discussions on controversial topics 
At root, moderating a discussion involves distributing a scarce resource—namely, the total time available for speaking to the group. But even trained moderators usually can't access the information needed to promote really great discussions. Indeed, whenever a group of people have a discussion—in classrooms, faculty meetings, conferences, boardrooms, the UN, etc.—they face a problem: Who gets to speak and when? The most common solution—a moderator selects from among people who've raised their hands—seems terrible for many reasons. How do different moderation conventions affect learning, problem solving, and decision making, and how can we tell? This project will investigate how different moderation conventions affect the quality of group discussion. I hypothesize that automated discussion moderation—and especially what I call “mixed discussion markets”— can dramatically improve the quality of group discussions.

(2) Test of Different Techniques to Depolarize Political Debate in the US
Test of different techniques to depolarize political debate in the US — student researchers will learn to develop and test experimental stimuli, and to code and analyze chat transcript data for natural language processing; students may also have opportunities to analyze study data.

(3) Develop and Test Techniques to Improve the Quality of US Intelligence Analysts' Reasoning Capacities
Develop and test techniques to improve the quality of US Intelligence Analysts' reasoning capacities — student researchers will learn to design empirical studies that test practical interventions for enhancing general and probabilistic reasoning skills of the sort that are most important to the US Intelligence Community.

Interested students should contact Professor Cullen.

Section J, Professor Laurie Heller

Auditory Perception
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 I, Professor Michael Trujillo

Navigating Social Identities in Social Interactions
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.

Section A, Professor Julie Downs

Decision Science Survey Research and Analysis
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.

Open to more than one student.

Interested students fill out Dr. Downs’ research lab interest form and mention that they are specifically interested in the research training course.