RESEARCH
Below are research opportunities we've identified in the Chicago area that are relevant to the study of culture, ethnicity, and race. If you have any suggestions for this running list, please reach out!
DEPAUL UNIVERSITY
Culture and Evidence Based Practice Lab
Antonio Polo
This lab focuses on internalizing disorders among Latino and other ethnic and linguistic minority youth.
Healthy Families Lab
Jocelyn Carter
Current projects are most closely focused on the cultural influences of obesity in children and families.
Science and Identity Study
Christine Reyna
This study aims to explore experiences of racial and gender identity, experiences in school, and experiences with science among high school girls in Chicago to identify potential barriers and develop interventions for girls in STEM.
Chicago Asian American Psychology Lab
Anne Saw
This lab studies structural and sociocultural influences on coping and health behaviors and contribute to the development, evaluation, implementation, and dissemination of culturally responsive behavioral health interventions, focused on underserved communities.
The Mentoring and Intersectional Community Psychology Lab
Bernadette Sanchez
This lab has emphasis on youth mentoring, positive youth development, and race, ethnicity and culture.
Cities Mentor Project / Stress and Coping Lab
Kathy Grant
The Cities Project includes a series of studies conducted with urban youth and their families and with urban schools and partner organizations. The overarching goals of these studies are: 1) to understand how stressful life experiences affect the mental and physical health and academic engagement and achievement of youth and 2) to develop prevention and intervention programs that will minimize negative health and academic outcomes and maximize positive health and academic outcomes for youth exposed to stressful life experiences, especially for those youth exposed to the severe and chronic stressors associated with urban poverty.
Center for Community Research
Leonard Jason
Dr. Leonard Jason's research is funded by NIH and supports work with chronic illnesses, addiction, and violence prevention. The focus of his research is community-based as well as public policy oriented.
Social Development Lab
Yan Li
The Social Development Lab, directed by Dr. Yan Li, addresses research questions about social development from middle childhood to adolescence. The goal of her research is to understand the developmental processes and contribute to the promotion of well adjustment in children and adolescents.
Emotion and Cognition Lab
Joseph Mikels
We study the role of emotion in decision making, how positive and negative emotions impact our judgments, and the changes in these phenomena in later life. Our research uses a number of different approaches to investigate the questions we’re interested in: surveys, behavioral tasks, and even physiological measurements that show us the physical changes associated with emotional responses.
RUSH UNIVERSITY
Traumatic Stress and Resilience Research Group
Stevan E. Hobfoll
James I. Gerhart
Alyson K. Zalta
The lab focuses on how individuals and groups are impacted by traumatic life circumstances and how that translates to psychological distress and illness, as well as a surprising degree of thriving.
The Eating Behavior, Obesity and Diabetes Lab
Joyce Corsica
Megan Hood
Lauren Bradley
This lab investigates behavioral and psychological factors in metabolic conditions, particularly obesity and diabetes, and applies this knowledge to the development of interventions that improve treatment of these conditions and quality of life in the patients who have them.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Developmental Investigations & Strategy Laboratory
Alex Shaw
Research in the DIBS Lab is focused on children’s developing understanding of reputation. We are interested in how children track other people’s reputations and how children modify their own behavior to improve their own reputation.
Communication and Learning Lab
Daniel Yurovsky
The Communication and Learning Lab focuses on children's coordination abilities, language acquisition, and learning problems. Representations and algorithms that children use when facing a learning problem, investigating the natural ecological contexts in which language acquisition occurs, and using computational models to formalize interactions between a learner and their environment are all aspects of what this lab studies.
https://callab.uchicago.edu/index.html
Infant Learning and Development Laboratory
Amanda Woodward
The Infant Learning and Development Lab investigate infants’ and young children’s understanding of aspects of the social world, specifically in relation to intentions, perceptions and emotions that organize and motivate others’ actions.
http://woodwardlab.uchicago.edu/
The Multilingualism and Decision-Making Lab
Boaz Keysar
The Multilingualism and Decision-Making Lab is dedicated to understanding the relationship between thinking, decision making, negotiation, and communication. Predominantly, our most recent research has focused on how bilingualism affects how we think and make decisions.
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY, CHICAGO
Behavioral Research on Acceptance and Diversity Laboratory (BROAD) Lab
Robyn Mallett
Investigate the Intergroup Forecasting Error, or the tendency to expect the worst from intergroup. Research focuses on how people navigate their social worlds, including how they understand and control the world around them through individual and collective action.
Bilingual Language Development Lab
Perla Gomez
Research team is dedicated to investigating the language and literacy development of children negotiating two languages. They aim to understand how children's linguistic environments and experiences, at different developmental time points, help promote their language and literacy skills.
Children Adapting to Stress and Diversity (CASA) Lab
Committed to research that improves our understanding of how children and families manage stressful circumstances and how we can use that knowledge to design helpful programs that promote resilience.
Emotion, Language, and Cognition in Neurotypical and Atypical (Autism Spectrum Disorders) Development Research Lab
Denise Davidson
Research on body image projects and restrictive eating in individuals with and without ASD. A few of our new research studies include (1) examining proneness to guilt and shame in individuals with ASD, (2) helping college students with ASD navigate college, and (3) Language development across diverse language groups (e.g., children with ASD, bilingual language brokers) (4) assessing and improving, through assisted technology, the writing skills of children with ASD.
Risk and Resilience Lab
Maryse Richards
Evaluate the effectiveness of community based cross-age mentoring to reduce negative outcomes related to violence exposure/engagement and promote positive development among African-American and Latino youth from four sites serving three low-income, high violence urban neighborhoods engaging youth mentors from the same high-risk environment.
Self-Regulation, Early Development, and Settings (SEEDS) Lab
Christine Li-Grining
Research focuses on early childhood development, early childhood education, and social issues such as poverty. First line of research focuses on children's self-regulation (e.g., ability to control your behavior, attention, and emotions) as a source of resilience in the context of poverty. Lab projects include investigations of links from early self-regulation to their later academic achievement, among children in low-income communities and among children drawn from nationally representative samples.
Parents and Children Coping Together Research (PACCT) Lab
Noni Gaylord-Harden
Research team studies stress, coping, and psychological functioning in African American youth and families. The goal of our community- and school-based research is to enhance the well-being of African American youth and families.
Promoting Adjustment in Children through Evaluation (PACE) Lab
Scott Leon
The PACE lab seeks to use tools used in program evaluation to improve the mental health and well-being outcomes of children and families, particularly those with child welfare involvement.
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Project on Child Development
Jennifer L Woodring
What do babies think? How do infants learn new words? What do young children see when they look at the world around them? We study these and many other exciting questions at the Project on Child Development.
Personality Across Development Lab
Jennifer Tackett
We cover a broad range of personality and psychopathology topics in our lab, so if you are interested in personality, temperament, externalizing disorders, self-regulation, emotional regulation, personality disorders, or the development of any of these, the lab may be a good fit for you. Opportunities may also exist for you to gain experience with clinical interviewing.
Bilingualism and Psycholinguistics Research Laboratory
Viorica Marian
Our lab conducts research on language processing, language learning, and language and memory in bilinguals and monolinguals. Broadly speaking, research in our lab focuses on bilingualism/multilingualism, psycholinguistics (spoken and written language; language and cognition), and on-line cross-modal information integration of auditory and visual input (with eye-tracking).
Northwestern Relationships Lab
Eli J Finkel
We cover a broad range of personality and psychopathology topics in our lab, so if you are interested in personality, temperament, externalizing disorders, self-regulation, emotional regulation, personality disorders, or the development of any of these, the lab may be a good fit for you. Opportunities may also exist for you to gain experience with clinical interviewing.
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Jason J Washburn
Dr. Jason Washburne's clinical interests include mental health treatment and evaluation of children and adolescents. Overarching interests include evidence-based practice and clinical outcomes. Additionally, he is interested in nonsuicidal self-injury, pediatric bipolar disorder, and the development of antisocial behaviors. Attended DePaul University.
http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/faculty-profiles/az/profile.html?xid=17097
Early Intervention Research Group
Philip Robert Curtis
The overall mission of the Early Intervention Research Group (EIRG) is to support and enhance early development of infants and toddlers. The following goals guide this mission: to empower families to implement effective early intervention strategies, to increase implementation of evidence-based and family-centered practices in early intervention, and to understand the best ways to adapt and customize intervention strategies based on child and family characteristics.
Social Media Lab
Marcia L Hilliard
The NU Social Media Lab engages in research on how social media — defined broadly as technologies that facilitate social behavior among people — are used for work and play. We are interested in understanding both how social media are used today, and how technologies might be designed to better support people’s existing goals and enable them to do new things.
Social Cognition & Intergroup Process Lab
James Wages JamesWages2021@u.northwestern.edu
A social psychological science research lab utilizing experimental, descriptive, survey, online, and laboratory methods. Research in the SCIP Lab investigates how individual differences interact with the situation to affect intergroup contexts, educational and healthcare settings, and people's sense of belonging and psychological well-being.
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, CHICAGO
Children’s Participation and Environment Research Lab (CPERL)
Mary A. Khetani
CPERL strives to advance client-centered care and outcomes in pediatric (re)habilitation.