Join our research team!
Undergraduate Training
We are currently accepting research assistants until April 12, 2024. To be considered please click "Apply Today" down below.
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Research Assistants are involved with the day-to-day aspects of our research, including participant recruitment, data management, data collection (we use a variety of strategies for collecting data, including structured interview, self-report questionnaires, electronic daily diary reports, biological data, and behavioral tasks), participant correspondence, and miscellaneous office tasks. Undergraduate Research Assistants will have the opportunity to participate in the Campus Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Initiative program (COURI) and present at national conferences. Student researchers can earn course credit for their service in lab.
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To apply, please click the "Apply Today" button to be directed to our online application form. Once completed, please email a PDF or Microsoft Word file of your unofficial transcript to Dr. April Gile Thomas at athomas5@utep.edu.
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For more information, please contact
Dr. Thomas at athomas5@utep.edu.
Testimonial:
"Being a research assistant has given me a vast amount of valuable experiences. Dr. Thomas has been a helpful mentor and has introduced me to many opportunities for growth. My research team and I presented our research for the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) Annual Conference in Portland, OR. With Dr. Thomas's encouragement, I have also applied for and received awards and fellowships, such as the AP-LS Access Path to Psychology and Law Experience scholarship award (which funded a year of research with Dr. Thomas and travel funds to attend the AP-LS Conference) and the Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques Diversity Program at the University of Michigan (a three-week fellowship program about survey techniques and methodology). Another opportunity that this research lab has given me was writing my own research paper as an undergraduate with the goal of getting it published in a scholarly journal. As this is my senior year, Dr. Thomas is also helping me with my graduate school search and application process. Overall, being a research assistant in this lab has been an amazing experience that has strengthened my research abilities and given me opportunities that I would not have had otherwise. It has definitely prepared me for graduate school and all of my future endeavors." -- Elizabeth Purser, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Eligibility:
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Commit to work 1 year in the lab (including summer/winter break)
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Commit to work 10 hours per week
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Available Wednesdays from 12-1pm for lab meetings
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Minimum GPA 3.0
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Bilingual (Spanish/English) is a plus!
Graduate Training
Our laboratory pursues research on how developmental science can inform understanding of adolescent risk behavior and delinquency. Ongoing studies are examining the effects of incarceration on adolescent development, particularly in the areas of sleep, social development, mental health, and externalizing behavior. This laboratory research is funded by the National Science Foundation and the American Psychological Foundation. For additional information about our research, see Dr. April Gile Thomas, University of Texas at El Paso.
Graduate students in the Adolescent Development and Delinquency Lab are expected to run their own independent research projects, assist with ongoing research in the lab, and assist with training and supervising undergraduate Research Assistants.
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Graduate students in the Department of Psychology at The University of Texas at El Paso typically receive funding for five years of study, which includes partial tuition waivers and stipends. For more information about applying, please visit our webpage for prospective PhD students.
The mission of the Department of Psychology is to engage in the discovery of knowledge about behavior and mental processes, and the biological, social, and psychological processes that underlie them, and to share that knowledge and the processes for obtaining it with our students and the scholarly community. The Department integrates graduate and undergraduate education, teaching, research, and service activities to further the overall mission of the university. The department maintains doctoral programs in (1) Health, (2) Legal, (3) Social, (4) Neuroscience, and (5) Bilingualism, Language, & Cognition.
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For Ph.D. training in the Adolescent Development and Delinquency Lab, students should apply through the Legal Psychology program. Click here for more information for prospective students.
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