Testimonials

Testimonials from 2021-2023 Summer Research Fellows can be found below.

“This past summer, I had the opportunity to work for the Georgetown Early Learning Project under Dr. Barr. While in the ELP, I worked on Grandparenting in the Digital Age and the CAFE Consortium projects. I had the chance to work on recruitment and coding using different software. One valuable skill I learned is how to use software like Datavyu and R. I also saw what it was like to engage in research: the beginning recruitment period and the data analysis period. Lastly, I learned professional development skills, such as communication, problem-solving, organization, and management, to name a few. Overall, I gained the necessary skills that would help me succeed in the future.“

Quynh Pham | 2021 Summer Fellow

“I worked under Dr. Rachel Barr at the Early Learning Project as a psychology summer fellow and am continuing my work as a research assistant for the ELP during the current school year. I worked on the Video Chat COVID and Eye Tracking studies. I gained valuable experience in persistence, teamwork, participant recruitment, behavioral coding, survey design via REDCap, and R programming.”

Stephanie Haddad | 2021 Summer Fellow

“This summer I had the privilege of working alongside Professor Ryan to complete two projects. The first project focused on coding tweets to determine how people defined good and bad parenting and the second project was centered around creating a survey for parents to provide their perceptions of childhood independence and identify age-appropriate milestones. Participating in these projects not only gave me the opportunity to expand upon my interest in psychological research but it enabled me to strengthen my data analytical skills. Aside from improving my research methods skills, I was granted the chance to practice formulating research questions based on existing literature. This experience was a highlight of my Georgetown career, and I am now more confident in my decision to pursue an MD/PhD.“

Nya Douglas | 2021 Summer Fellow

“This summer I had the honor of working in Dr. Chentsova Dutton’s Culture and Emotion Lab conducting research on “Emotion regulation during Covid” where I helped code for whether emotion regulation strategies were mentioned in Indian and American newspaper articles during COVID. This project consisted of going over several American and Indian newspaper articles and coding for whether Covid as well as an emotion regulation strategy is mentioned in the article and then identifying the emotion regulation strategy. I gained valuable experience and skills in detail-orientation, judgment, communication, organization, and persistence and I am extremely grateful for this experience because it is going to help me throughout the rest of my academic and professional career.”

Avantica Saraf | 2022 Summer Fellow

“This past summer, I worked for the Georgetown Early Learning Project (ELP) under Dr. Barr. I loved it so much that I am continuing my work as a research assistant for the ELP during the school year. We investigate how babies absorb information from the sources around them through the examination of learning and memory (Cognitive Flexibility project), the role of bilingual exposure, parent-child interactions (PLAY), and learning from media (CAFE Consortium study). Thankfully, I was involved in all three of these studies throughout the program’s mentored research training. Furthermore, I also had the chance to spearhead our recruitment efforts, revamping our lab’s name within the community and on social media platforms. I gained valuable experience in communication, problem-solving, organization, management, teamwork, recruiting/testing participants and behavioral coding. As a senior involved in athletics and rigorous academics here at Georgetown University, the ELP summer fellowship kicked off my research experience. Now, I continue to enhance my skills and training, ultimately furthering my education and preparing me for a professional career in Public Health.”

Lorena Vasquez-Inzunza | 2022 Summer Fellow

“This summer, I worked with Dr. Chentsova Dutton in the Culture and Emotions Lab on coding and a literature search for an emotional modeling study that I had helped to create and run during the academic year. Over the summer, the other lovely RA’s and I worked to digitize questionnaire data, transcribe interviews, and develop a code book for the more subjective data from the interview section of the study. After many re-codes and manual changes, we were able to reach interrater reliability! I am really grateful to the department fellowship, since it made it possible for me to be here in DC so that I could take part in in-person reliability conversations with the team and work with real study data, something I had never done before. It was enlightening and so enjoyable to gain experience working with data alongside such a great team and mentor!”

Jenna Thomas | 2023 Summer Fellow

“This summer I had the wonderful experience of working for Dr. Rachel Barr’s developmental psychology lab, the Early Learning Project. I worked on several projects, primarily leading onboarding calls for participants and coding data for CAFE, a study focused on family media usage. I also frequently visited the National Children’s Museum for an exciting collaboration with a lab from George Washington University, a study focused on social learning and imitation behaviors of children ages 18 to 30 months with spatial and pictorial tasks on a tablet. This is my first experience working in a lab, and I have grown to really value the supportive environment and the presence of other research assistants who are always happy to lift each other up and help to problem solve. My aspirations for the near future are to attend graduate school to obtain my Masters degree in Clinical Psychology, as I hope to one day provide therapy for people who have experienced domestic violence and sexual assault. Having the experience of working in a lab has given me an insight into many different angles of psychology research, which will be incredibly important for me in the years to come, and I was really grateful for the opportunity to work in the ELP this summer.”

Phoebe Chartok | 2023 Summer Fellow