Please reference the chart below for opportunities offered through the Work-Study Research Assistant Program for 2024-2025 academic year. Opportunities for the upcoming academic year will be posted from June through mid-August. Follow the link in the Job Posting column to access the position listing. Note that all applications must be submitted through JobX. Only applications from undergraduate students with work-study awards will be considered. Please note that the opportunities denoted with the First Generation image are offered by faculty members who themselves identify as first generation (neither parent completed a four-year degree); first generation students are particularly encouraged to consider these positions and apply to those that align with their skills and interests.

Job Posting	Faculty Name	Department	Research Focus/Brief Position Description	Status
14076-Waterbury	Melisa Argañaraz Gomes	Urban and Community Studies	I am seeking a research assistant to support either a book project focused on Latin American children and youth care work and labor in Waterbury and Baltimore during the pandemic. Children’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic have received little attention. Popular discourses claim that children are less likely to be affected by the virus and focus on isolation/mental health consequences. In doing so, these discourses present children as passive victims. This research examines how youths’ political acts of care are critical to the survival of their families, peers, and society; however, ‘care for their families’ may force youth to sacrifice their well-being and future prospects. This research focuses on the active participation of immigrant Latin American children in US society and the necessity for safety nets to protect/recognize their care work. This work includes topics such as criminality, care work/labor, health, and education of Latin American Children and Youth. Alongside this research you will be able to develop your own research project.	Open
14906	Laura Mauldin	Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies	This position will support the publication of a book on the topic of the politics of disability and the US care crisis. The writing relates to the ways ableism (or the devaluation of disability) is embedded into every aspect of our culture and society, which then translates into such things as a lack of care infrastructure and the resulting dependence on the unpaid care work of family members. The book will cover many facets of both the disability experience and family caregiving. I am looking for a student who understands factchecking (from a journalistic perspective) and/or has interest in social media and marketing.	Open
14911	Caitlin Lombardi	Human Development and Family Sciences	The focus of my research is on early childhood development and programs and policies that influence young children and their families. This position will be on the CT Early Years project. Please read more about it here: https://arclab.hdfs.uconn.edu/connecticut-early-years/. The student will help with recruiting and tracking research participants and child care programs, data entry, and other research related tasks.	Open
14908	SeungYeon Kang	School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Manufacturing Engineering	Our lab work on light-based additive manufacturing (3D printing) technologies; digital light processing (DLP) and multiphoton SLA (stereolithography). In contrast to polymer printing techniques, we focus on developing metal printing methods. We are looking for self-motivated students who can help us i) prepare samples for determining optimized recipe, ii) take mechanical/electrical measurements and/or iii) run simulations to understand the relationship between printing parameters and structure property. Previous knowledge on additive manufacturing and COMSOL/ANSYS is a plus.	Open
14909	SeungYeon Kang	School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Manufacturing Engineering	Our lab is interested in understanding how lithium-ion batteries perform under pressure. We are looking for self-motivated students who can help us i) prepare samples for determining optimized recipe, ii) replicate battery samples, and/or iii) take electrochemical/mechanical measurements.	Open
14104-Stamford	Frederick Roden	English	This position involves work with an archive, historical documents and images (digital and hard copy) and stories. It is well suited for students in the humanities, particularly English and History. They will develop career skills in editing, organizing information, and verbal/visual storytelling. The student will work with the professor in person on campus in organizing and documenting historical documents and images. The student may also be able to work partially remotely in reading and researching information related to the project. Evaluating scholarly sources and editing notes and written documents will combine with aspects of storytelling. The student should be based in Stamford for in-person work. Students with digital proficiency will contribute to a multimedia aspect of this project’s development.	Open
14925	Scott Brown	Office of Global Affairs	The UConn Office of Global Affairs is committed to supporting the assessment process for measuring the impact of the Experiential Global Learning (EGL) program on students - both immediate and long-term, by establishing an Assessment Team led by Dr. Brown, which has created and administered The UConn Intercultural Competency Scale (UICS). The UICS is administered in a pre- and post- format, as well as interviewing a sample of EGL participants after graduation in an online focus group. Two (2) WSRAs are being recruited to become members of the assessment team to support: recruitment, administration, coding, analyzing and report writing related to this project. Research assistants will be trained, supported and mentored related to the research process in the social sciences. Training in qualitative coding and analyses, as well as quantitative analyses will be provided. These assistants will participate in report writing and be recognized with authorship opportunities, as appropriate. Students will be expected to work approximately 6 hours per week, and some of the work may be remote.	Open
14936	Kelly Herd	Marketing	As a marketing professor and consumer psychologist, I am interested in uncovering how people’s thoughts and experiences influence their actions, particularly as they relate to the creative process. Using lab experiments, we ask participants to complete a series of creativity, brainstorming, and product design tasks, which are then evaluated on a variety of dimensions (e.g., novelty, practicality). This position could be a good fit for students interested in business, psychology, and/or communications, among other topics. Students in this position are expected to help create materials for experiments (including survey development), conduct basic literature reviews, and find "real world" examples of the topics we study (e.g., consumer crowdsourcing, inclusive design, donations).	Open
13032	Tom Deans	English	What are the implications of AI technologies for writing and the teaching of writing? This research investigates the ways that students and teachers are using AI and how we can think through how we might employ AI ethically and effectively in classrooms, writing centers, workplaces, and other learning spaces. his position will involve reviewing both popular press accounts and scholarly publications on AI writing technologies, especially their relation to teaching and learning in universities and secondary schools. There will be weekly meetings with the PI to discuss readings, plan projects, assist with creating visuals for presentations, and the like.	Open
13991	Daniel Bolnick	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	Our research concerns the genetic variation in immune function in threespine stickleback fish. We rear laboratory bred populations of stickleback drawn from different natural populations spanning a range of immune and other phenotypic traits, and map the genetic basis of this evolved variation. The student will conduct experimental studies of optimal feeding strategies for rearing laboratory colonies of threespine stickleback fish. They will be responsible for animal feeding, care, data collection, and data analysis.	Open
14959	Natalie Shook	School of Nursing	The goal of the Shook Lab is to understand psychological and social factors that influence mental (e.g., depression, anxiety) and physical health (e.g., pain), as well as health behaviors (e.g., vaccine uptake). Projects in the lab focus on different populations and use a variety of methodologies. Students will assist with literature reviews, designing and testing new studies, screening and scheduling participants, running study sessions and collecting data, and cleaning and managing datasets. Opportunities will also be available for students to assist with dissemination of findings (e.g., presenting at conferences, co-authoring manuscripts).	Filled
13042-Waterbury	Kimberly Cuevas	Psychological Sciences	In the CAP Lab, we study the building blocks of early cognitive development. We play different games to understand how babies and young kids learn, remember, and think at different points during development. By wearing our EEG & ECG sensors as they play, we gain insight into how brain waves and heart activity are involved in kids’ thinking. Student research assistants interested in developmental cognitive neuroscience research with a background in psychological sciences are encouraged to apply. RAs will contribute to multiple aspects of research (community outreach, recruitment, data collection, data coding) investigating the development of self-regulation, memory, cognitive flexibility, imitation, and the “social brain”. Lab members at the Waterbury Campus have the opportunity to work infants, toddlers, & preschoolers.	Open
13043	Kimberly Cuevas	Psychological Sciences	In the CAP Lab, we study the building blocks of early cognitive development. We play different games to understand how babies and young kids learn, remember, and think at different points during development. By wearing our EEG & ECG sensors as they play, we gain insight into how brain waves and heart activity are involved in kids’ thinking.Student research assistants interested in developmental cognitive neuroscience research with a background in psychological sciences are encouraged to apply. RAs will contribute to multiple aspects of research (community outreach, recruitment, data coding) investigating the development of self-regulation, memory, cognitive flexibility, imitation, and the “social brain”. Data collection is at the Waterbury Campus; Storrs RAs focus on primarily behind the scenes aspects of research with emphasis on data coding and management.	Filled
14947	Roman Shrestha	Allied Health Sciences	My research primarily centers on the interface of HIV, substance use, mental health, and mobile technology (mHealth), specifically focused on HIV prevention and treatment issues. My current projects include NIH-funded grants, both domestically and internationally. The domestic projects focus on HIV and substance use prevention in people who use drugs. The international projects emphasize using mHealth technologies, such as apps, to promote HIV testing and linkage to HIV prevention services among sexually diverse groups (i.e., MSM, TGW) in Malaysia and Nepal, with a focus on mental health in Nepal. Research Assistants will have the opportunity to be involved virtually in various aspects of these projects, collaborating with an interdisciplinary research team that includes community stakeholders, faculty, research staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students. However, they are required to attend bi-weekly team meetings in person.	Open
14946	Xinyu Zhao	School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing	The research program aims at explaining basic concepts of heat transfer using existing research data from the lab, and from the literature. The student has the opportunity to contributing to new materials on educational websites and textbooks that have an international audience. The student is expected to 1) clean up existing research data so that the data can be easily shared and used by people with interest; 2) digitize data from the literature and plot them in a prescribed format to be publishable either online or in book format; 3) running/adding to python programs that explain basic problems in heat transfer using existing or digitized research data; 4) review/proof-read materials for future book publication and create contents for websites.	Open
14961	Eiling Yee	Psychological Sciences	This position will support research in two labs. Yee Lab: How do we know what a lemon is, or understand the concept of joy? The goal of much of the lab’s research is to understand how meaning is represented—particularly the cognitive and neural representations of conceptual knowledge (a.k.a. semantic memory). For instance, how is the representation and retrieval of conceptual information affected by factors such as long-term experience, short-term experience, and the current context? We address these questions using a number of different tools, primarily behavioral responses, but also eye movements, EEG, and fMRI. See: https://yeelab.uconn.edu/research-overview/. Altmann Lab: How does the human mind “do” language? In particular, we focus on sentence and multi-sentence comprehension - how, for example, we interpret in real time (i.e. as each word is encountered, one-by-one) the “events” described by those sentences. How do we track the different objects that take part in an event? Or keep track of the different things that happen to those objects? Our lab uses a range of behavioral and neuroscientific methods to address these and other questions. See: https://altmann.lab.uconn.edu/research/	Open
14960	Tiffany Kelley	School of Nursing	Dr. Kelley is the first professor of her kind to lead innovation integration into nursing core curriculum. She has spent 20 of her current 24 nursing years aiming for higher quality care through healthcare technologies. Dr. Kelley’s relentless vision for breaking the status quo in nursing led to her pursuit of a professional, academic, and entrepreneurial trajectory in nursing informatics and innovation, both specialty nursing fields, that integrate multiple sciences to guide the practice. This position will be to support Dr. Kelley with conducting literature searches and formulating research papers for submission. The student in this position will be motivated and eager to learn the skills and steps involved in developing new knowledge for publication in journals and books. The student in this position will work with Dr. Kelley to identify key articles, organize data, formulate tables, reference lists, journal manuscript templates and more.	Open
12983	Crystal Park	Psychological Sciences	We study stress, coping and mental health and the factors that help people to be resilient (e.g., self-compassion, mindfulness, spirituality, coping skills). We also study mind-body interventions like yoga and meditation to promote mental and physical health. Research assistants attend weekly lab meetings (Wednesdays 1:25-2:15), during which we review projects and discuss a weekly journal article. In addition, each research assistant is assigned to a specific project; specific activities depend on the project and might include running participants, collecting and coding data, finding relevant background literature, helping to design new studies, and analyzing and interpreting data.	Open
13154	Sherry Pagoto	Allied Health Sciences	My research focuses on using digital platforms to deliver weight management interventions. We conduct both quantitative and qualitative analyses of behavioral data. We need assistance collecting behavioral data in clinical trials testing behavioral weight loss interventions delivered via social media platforms. This position entails extracting behavioral data from digital/social media platforms and processing it in a way that prepares it for statistical analyses. The candidate may also be trained to perform qualitative coding of data. Candidates will get experience with data management software programs, weight management interventions, and clinical trial data.	Open
14920	Jonathan Klassen	Molecular and Cell Biology	Our lab studies how animals benefit from the microbes that they live with and how these relationships work mechanistically. We are particularly interested in how such symbioses respond to stressors, including disease, environmental challenges (e.g., forest fires), and nutrient availability. We primarily study these using a unique insect model system (fungus-growing ants) that allows us to understand the chemical, genetic, and microbiological bases of symbiosis. The WSRAP student will maintain ant colonies in our lab and use these to set up experiments that uncover how ants maintain their microbial symbionts, collaboratively with other lab members. Such experiments may include (but are not limited to) testing ant behaviors, colony stress responses, sample collection for later analyses, or DNA-based analyses. WSRAP students will also support other lab tasks (e.g., record keeping, sample archival) as needed. Development of more specific projects is possible based on WSRAP student interest and experience.	Filled
14115-Stamford	Mars Plater	History	I am writing a book about green spaces in New York City during the 1800s. I am learning about how parks and private commercial green spaces (called "pleasure gardens," "beer gardens," and "excursion groves") were where working-class New Yorkers fought against authorities and elites in order to have fun outdoors, while fighting amongst themselves over issues of racism, sexism, and nativism. A forgotten strand of environmentalism grew in these complicated and dramatic green spaces. am looking for research assistants to help me finish and improve my manuscript in the following ways: A. doing research into some lingering questions I'm having about nineteenth-century NYC; B. helping to format my citations; C. transcribing newspaper articles from the 1800s and offering your thoughts on what they reveal; D. reading chapters to let me know where the writing is confusing or boring	Open
14984	Joshua Mayer	Anthropology	I am a community-collaborative ethnographer working with Indigenous and Black communities in Nicaragua to study research questions that address the communities’ most pressing needs. For several decades, the communities with which I work have been engaged in a legal and political struggle to stop individuals, businesses, and government entities from seizing their ancestral lands. This project is an oral history of the ongoing, anticolonial struggle of one Indigenous community and one Black community in southeastern Nicaragua; more than 80 interviews were conducted in 2022. The student selected for this position will participate in the transcription and analysis of oral history interviews, which will contribute to a report for the participant communities and to a scholarly book manuscript. If the student is interested, there may be opportunities for remote meetings with community leaders and co-researchers to discuss the analysis of the interviews and research products. Note that this position will require the ability to understand and transcribe interviews in either Spanish or an English-based Central American or Caribbean creole language.	Open
14981	Jason Hancock	Physics and Institute of Materials Science	Research in fundamental quantum materials physics, with some applied physics projects using photon based spectroscopy. Student would join the research group, be available to assist. graduate students, may receive and independent project from the PI after initiation period. Experiments may use lasers and broadband sources, may include synchrotron based experiments at national laboratories.	Open
14983	Kaveh Yazdani	History	I am specialized in social and economic history between in the 16th and 19th centuries. I am currently researching the history of capitalism in Asia (particularly India and Iran) with a special focus on the Parsi and Zoroastrian communities between the 16th and 20th centuries. The position can be in-person, partially in-person, or fully remote. Students are expected to create bibliographies and search for primary sources in newspaper archives and other available datasets. In the course of time, they will also have the opportunity to read the relevant literature and/or primary sources, extract excerpts and write an independent proposal and/or paper.	Open
14129	Zehra Arat	Political Science	The student would help with multiple projects. The subject matter of all projects involve human rights. The methodology employed is typically text analysis (content analysis of documents). A student in this position will assist a political science professor in carrying out a number of human rights research projects (e.g., neoliberalism, the UN, and human rights; human rights discourse and practices in Turkey; international human rights norms; human rights theory of democratic backsliding) that are in different stages. Thus, the job will allow the student to observe and participate in different stages of the research process, from the formulation and justification of a research question to the preparation and revision of articles for publication.	Open
14980	Molly Waring	Allied Health Sciences	Our research focuses on health promotion among pregnant and post-partum persons and mothers, with a particular focus on healthy eating, weight management, and mental health. Ongoing research projects relate to misinformation on social media about child nutrition, use of social media to support maternal mental health, and lifestyle interventions for pregnant persons with gestational diabetes. Research Assistants will work with our research team on multiple ongoing research projects. Research Assistants will get involved in all aspects of our projects, from study design to participant recruitment to data collection to results reporting. We expect that Research Assistants will assist with participant interviews, qualitative data analysis, literature searches, and results reporting.	Open
13151	Steve Utke	Accounting	The focus of this research is to understand the amount of tax that multinational firms pay, or would pay if they did not operate globally. This position involves collecting income tax data of publicly traded firms in order to determine how much tax these firms owe on their foreign earnings. This information is available from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the position will involve learning how to use their website and read financial statements of publicly traded firms.	Open
14991	Sandra Chafouleas	Educational Psychology	This position entails working with Dr. Chafouleas and her research team, with specific emphasis on tasks for the UConn Collaboratory on School and Child Health (CSCH; see http://csch.uconn.edu). The mission of the Collaboratory on School and Child Health (CSCH) is to facilitate innovative and impactful connections across research, policy, and practice arenas to advance equity in school and child health. CSCH is committed to anti-racist work that prioritizes inclusion, reduces disparities, and creates systemic change. CSCH researchers acknowledge that a whole child lens that integrates academics and health in serving students leads to better student outcomes across domains (academic, social, emotional, behavioral, physical). Although CSCH is engaged in many scholarly activities, the primary job tasks for this position include research dissemination activities across areas related to school and child health. The person may interact with multiple team members and CSCH affiliates, with the intent to facilitate work to synthesize and disseminate information on evidence-informed policy and practices (e.g. what are best practices for increasing physical activity?, what has the policy impact been on changes to school nutrition programs?) in multi-media formats (e.g., brief user-friendly reports, podcasts), through conference presentations, and at networking events.	Open
14993	Bandana Purkayastha	Sociology	Document the state of sociology in several countries of the world. These will be oral documentation, through interviews with the heads of national associations in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, and the data/narratives will be prepared for dissemination as podcasts. The student will help me to conduct short interviews, but the main task is to prepare all stages of the podcasts. Experience with producing podcasts is essential. I will only expect you to participate in the interviews that fit into your normal work hours in the US; I will complete the others. This is an unprecedented opportunity to hear from global leaders about the state of social sciences, specifically sociology, in several countries. I will train you to understand the logic of the interviews and the purpose of publishing these as podcasts. Your effort will be acknowledged. If we gather sufficient information to prepare a traditional article, I will train you in that process as well.	Open
14996	Lauren Corso	Allied Health Sciences	The posted position is a research assistantship working on a study that aims to examine behavioral and biological determinants of cardiometabolic health risk in young female adults. Identifying early/subclinical determinants of cardiovascular risk offers researchers valuable information that can be used to design preventive and/or interventions to mitigate risk before disease states are established. The study is comprised of interviews/survey administration, anthropometric measures, as well as biomarker analysis. The assistantship role focuses on study advertisement, participant screening, scheduling study visits as well as active data collection for the interview/surveys. Formally, this position assists faculty in research efforts utilizing survey research techniques.	Open
15005	Daniel Bolnick	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	We are studying how fish ecological niches change when they are re-introduced to a habitat. This entails grinding and weighing and packing muscle tissue for Carbon and Nitrogen stable isotope analysis to infer diet, in fish sampled from 16 lakes in Alaska. The WSRAP researchers will prepare fish muscle tissues (pre-dried) by grinding and weighing and packing them to ship to a laboratory in Switzerland for stable isotope analysis. The students will be responsible for careful sample preparation, and data management tracking information on the samples. When data collection is completed there is an opportunity to be involved in data analysis after.	Open
15006-Hartford	Lisa Werkmeister Rozas	Social Work	The general focus of the research is around advancing the health and well-being of the Latine community in the Hartford and greater Hartford area. Currently, we are conducting listening sessions with Latine community members around policy issues, collecting oral histories of particular ethnic groups, and interviewing bilingual social workers to understand workforce development. We are also writing a grant to better understand Latine immigrant health. The research assist would be conducting interviews, focus groups, helping to develop and collect survey data, writing literature reviews for grants and publications, analyzing data, participating in team meetings and 1 or 2 trainings around research methods/data analysis. The student would also be helping to recruit study participants and write conference abstracts (and present them if desired) and manuscripts for publication.	Open
15010	Barbara Gurr	Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies	My research is focused on independent publishing (self-publishing) and social media (booktok, instagram, X, etc.). The student will research popular social media and other communications to determine race, gender, sexuality, among independent authors and their readers as well as other creators (i.e., reviewers). Develop social media campaigns for a volunteer indie author and measure their efficacy.	Open
15012	Bruce Blanchard	Allied Health Sciences	We use clinical laboratory techniques to train students enrolled in the Medical Laboratory Sciences (MLS) program. In the fall, we have laboratory courses in Hematology, Medical Chemistry, Blood Banking (Transfusion Services) and Urinalysis. In the spring, we have laboratory courses in Molecular Diagnostic Techniques, Introduction to MLS, and Mycology, Parasitology, and Virology. For this position, the work study student is expected to work with MLS faculty to set up instruments and prepare biological samples for testing/analysis by students enrolled in the MLS program. In addition, the work study student is expected to set up data entry sheets in HuskyCT for MLS students to enter their laboratory results and to perform the experiments on the samples to determine the expected results. Also, the work study student will be assigned relevant literature and case studies (related to each course) to read and discuss with MLS faculty.	Open
15019	Cristina Connolly	Agricultural and Resource Economics	We use case study methodology to look at the impact of adopting conservation practices on livestock farmers in New England. My research is part of a larger Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) grant to improve agricultural practices in the region. Students will be expected to review case study methodology in order to help develop the protocol. They will participate in interviews with producers and aid in data analysis and writing of the case study. Students will be expected to use Excel to collect and visualize cost and benefit data.	Open
15020	Kristina Wagstrom	Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	The Computational Atmospheric Chemistry and Exposure (CACE) Laboratory specializes in applying computational engineering-based approaches to address the impacts of air pollution on human and ecosystem health. We use a combination of computational modeling approaches, low cost monitoring, and community partnerships to effectively address a variety of questions. The overarching goal of the laboratory is to bridge the gap between the basic scientific understanding of the transport and transformation of atmospheric pollutants and the tools policy makers and communities use to develop potential air pollution abatement strategies. Students would have the opportunity to develop a research review on one of several topics including (but not limited to): airborne transport of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), indoor air quality in K-12 schools, the impact of airborne metal exposures, or using games in citizen science.	Open
15023	Kristina Wagstrom	Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	The Computational Atmospheric Chemistry and Exposure (CACE) Laboratory specializes in applying computational engineering-based approaches to address the impacts of air pollution on human and ecosystem health. We use a combination of computational modeling approaches, low cost monitoring, and community partnerships to effectively address a variety of questions. The overarching goal of the laboratory is to bridge the gap between the basic scientific understanding of the transport and transformation of atmospheric pollutants and the tools policy makers and communities use to develop potential air pollution abatement strategies. There are a large number of potential projects (both computer and laboratory based), and I will work with applicants to identify a project of interest though some potential project ideas can be found on the lab webpage (https://cace.lab.uconn.edu/available-undergraduate-research-projects/). There are project in the lab that can be completed either in-person or remotely and many will allow for flexible work hours.	Pending
15025	Diane Burgess	Pharmaceutical Sciences	The Burgess Lab is a growing research laboratory specialized in the areas of formulation development, and analytical characterization for different pharmaceutical dosage forms. We are looking for motivated and enthusiastic students to join our lab. The candidates will work with a senior graduate student to perform tests, record and analyze the results. We are looking for candidates with strong attention to detail, responsibility in maintaining the laboratory regulations and a clean workspace, as well as good communication skills.	Pending
13252	Jeffrey Cohen	Finance	My current research is related to topics in real estate finance/economics; affordable housing; transportation economics; renewable energy economics; substance use disorder treatment economics; inequality among various demographic groups, in their burden of environmental noise pollution; inequality in housing wealth accumulation among different racial and ethnic groups; and other economics/finance related topics. Much of my work utilizes statistical techniques to analyze data and test hypotheses on the above topics. More details about my research can be found on my UCONN webpage: https://www.business.uconn.edu/person/jeffrey-cohen/ I am looking for student(s) who can support my efforts with at least one, or more, of the following: (i) researching background literature and writing literature reviews for topics related to my research interests; (ii) supporting data analysis with Excel and/or statistical analysis software such as Stata, R, and/or Python; (iii) background research and writing for developing grant proposals; (iv) making of thematic maps with GIS or other software; (v) supporting developing presentation slides using Powerpoint and/or other software.	Open