Supervising Faculty: Andrea S. Medrano, Ph.D.
Contact: Angel Oros (CREAR Lab Manager), angel.oros@pitt.edu
Area of Research: trauma and violence, mental health, resilience and protective factors, gender-based violence, adolescent development, Latinx and Latin American communities (Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Puerto Rico), community-engaged research
Description of Research: The Community Research Exploring Adolescent Resilience (CREAR) lab is oriented towards identifying factors that contribute to youth’s optimal well-being and resilience in the face of contextual risk factors, with a particular focus on community settings. Aims of this research include identifying factors that may act as protective in the face of violence (i.e., community violence exposure, sexual harassment, interpersonal violence). Protective factors of interest include cultural values like familismo, and dimensions of parent-adolescent relationships like parent-adolescent communication and parental involvement. CREAR Lab has active projects in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Honduras focused on gender-based violence, community violence exposure, discrimination, anxiety, depression, PTSD, as well as qualitatively understanding participants’ experiences with violence in their own words. Much more information about our current projects is available here: https://www.andreacrearlab.com/
Duties of Students: Students will attend lab meetings and complete scheduled lab hours in our Sennott Square lab space (some remote lab hours are allowed as well). Lab tasks and responsibilities include completing readings and participating actively in lab meetings, conducting literature reviews and scoping reviews, screening articles, compiling readings in Zotero, conducting annotated bibliographies, validating measures, entering survey data, and checking qualitative interview transcriptions for accuracy, along with various other lab-related administrative tasks. Beyond these core research tasks, students have the opportunity to grow with the lab in a number of ways. Depending on their interests, skills, and level of involvement, RAs may co-author papers when their contributions warrant it, present at university symposia and academic conferences, and support our community engagement efforts and participant recruitment. Some RAs have also traveled with us across the U.S. and Latin America for data collection.
Undergraduate students will work closely with the lab manager, project coordinator, graduate students, and other undergraduate students, and will also interact with Dr. Medrano through regular lab meetings.
Requirements:
- Overall GPA of 3.0 or higher
- 12 credits of Psychology (including current term)
- STAT 0200/1000/1100 - Statistics
- PSY 0036 and 0037- Research Methods Lecture and Lab
Additional Requirements: We require an interview with the lab manager and project coordinator and will conduct a holistic review of applicants. Additional requirements include:
- Proficiency with basic computing tasks (Microsoft Word, Excel, PPT)
- Attention to detail.
- Superb communication.
- Availability for at least 2 terms, and ability to commit to at least 2 credits per term.
- Proficiency in Spanish a plus, but not required.
Terms Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Number of Students: Up to 4 students