At the Yee Lab, like at the University of Connecticut as a whole, our commitment to excellence is facilitated by our commitment to building a welcoming and diverse community. We actively encourage members of minority or under-represented groups, people with disabilities, and women to apply, and we strongly affirm the Department of Psychological Sciences’ Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:
“We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our classrooms, department, university, and society more broadly. To reflect our commitment, we will actively seek to recruit, mentor, support, and celebrate students, staff, and faculty from underrepresented social groups.
We recognize that we are in positions to work for new policies and practices that help make our community more diverse, while acknowledging the ways in which institutions, including academic institutions, have so often worked against people from marginalized social groups. We seek to create an inclusive climate that values and lifts up all members of our community. To do this, we strive to understand the historical and current systems which have shaped the ways in which we think about equality and prejudice. We accept that it is each of our responsibilities to identify and challenge the explicit and implicit biases and barriers that members of marginalized social groups face in academia and society. Facing these challenges is an ongoing practice that we must approach with honest dialogue and self-reflection. And while we recognize that this process will not be error-free, we are committed to evaluating our progress to ensure continued growth.
We recognize that the field of psychology, and science more broadly, has at times contributed to theories that have sought to derogate people from marginalized groups and to divide us on the basis of our social identities. We are committed to ensuring our own teaching, research, and mentoring is inclusive, and we recognize our responsibility to center ethical practices in our work.
As a department, we affirm these statements and agree to hold each other accountable to advance our commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Graduate students
Dr. Yee will consider highly qualified applicants to enter the Ph.D program in the Department of Psychological Sciences (Language and Cognition) in Fall 2024.
Here is information about our admissions process.
Undergraduate students
We are looking for people who are interested in, and excited to learn about the cognitive and neural bases of conceptual knowledge (a.k.a. semantic memory). For example, how do we know what a lemon is, or understand the concept of joy?
The Yee lab typically has a few positions available each semester for UConn undergraduates to work as research assistants. Students typically register for three credits of undergraduate research (usually PSYC 3889, independent study) per semester and spend 10-12 hours per week working in the lab. (For the first semester, some students register for only one credit, which normally involves participating in our weekly lab meetings, learning about our research, and some online training.)
Undergraduate research assistants assist the PI, postdocs, and graduate students with experiment preparation and data collection. We encourage undergraduate students to participate in the intellectual life of the lab by attending weekly lab meetings. Some students especially honors students or University Scholars, develop their own research projects. Before applying, please read about our research to see if the lab would be a good fit for your interests.
Also, please note that prior lab experience is NOT required to join the lab, so don’t worry if this is your first lab experience!
If you are interested in joining the lab, please fill out the form below.