Update: Applications for Summer 2024 are now closed (old link).

We plan on running our Summer 2024 internship in-person, pending any changes in Covid-19 conditions.

Program Overview

The goal of this program is to provide a comprehensive, hands-on research experience to highly motivated students, while making valuable contributions to cognitive science.

Our lab explores how linguistic, cognitive, and social abilities arise during human development. A central goal of our research is exploring how these different aspects of development interact with one another.

Interns will interact with the lab manager, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and each other, and will meet with Professor Srinivasan to discuss their research. Interns will participate in many facets of the research process, such as: assisting with data collection, working on stimuli creation and preparation of study materials, reading relevant theoretical and empirical papers, recruiting participants, and processing or analyzing data. Interns will also have the opportunity to test participants at schools and/or children’s museums in the Bay Area (pending COVID-19 regulations). Lastly, interns will attend weekly lab meetings and reading groups to discuss the theory behind research projects, and will have the opportunity to present on the projects they are assigned during the internship. We hope that interns will come away from these activities with an enriched understanding of language and cognitive development.

This is a 9 week internship program with 30 hours of participation per week (with federal holidays off). The program runs from Monday, June 3rd^st – Friday, August 2nd^th 2024. We are willing to accommodate a slightly later start date (~Monday, June 17th) if you are on the quarter system or if your school semester ends after May 31^st. We recommend applicants apply for outside funding, but will provide a stipend of $3375 to those who are not able to secure funding to offset living costs. Please note that this internship is unpaid however. The stipend is just to offset living costs. Please also note that we are unable to assist in finding or providing housing in the Bay Area.

Lastly, accepted interns will have to pass a background check with fingerprinting as this role involves working with minors.

Who Should Apply?

This program is designed for undergraduates, graduating seniors, and recent graduates who are interested in pursuing graduate work in psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, or related fields and/or students who are interested in doing an undergraduate honors thesis. While we are open to all applicants (including international) who are motivated and fit the requirements, due to processing time and cost constraints, we will be unable to sponsor a visa.

The LCD Lab does not accept high school students into our Summer Internship. If you are interested in working in the lab, please wait to apply until after you are 18 and have enrolled in a college or university.

Qualifications

Requirements:
1) Strong interest in language acquisition and/or cognitive development.
2) Coursework in: psychology, linguistics, or cognitive science.
3) Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
4) Strong communication skills in spoken and written English.

Additional Preferred Skills (Not Required):
Experience working in a research laboratory.
Computer programming experience.
Data analysis experience (R).
Experience working with children.
Experience with eye tracking technology (SMI).
Experience with behavioral coding (Datavyu).
Experience with Excel and PowerPoint.
Experience with Qualtrics and/or Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

How To Apply

Applications for Summer 2024 will be open until Thursday, February 1st at 9 AM PST.

Please familiarize yourself with our research, complete the online application, and submit all materials by Thursday, February 1st at 9 AM PST. Applications will be reviewed after this deadline and you will be contacted within one month.

You will need to submit the below materials as well as answer some short answer questions as part of the application:
– CV / Resume
– Transcript
– (Optional) This is optional, but we strongly encourage all applicants to have one or two people serve as references. A reference can be from professors, teaching assistants, instructors, employers, or supervisors. References will only be contacted if your application moves forward.

Please upload your documents in PDF format. Please name your documents as: FirstName_LastName_DocumentName.pdf EXAMPLE: Noah_Davis_CV.pdf.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the internship, please email our lab manager at lcdmanager[at]berkeley[dot]edu and put “Summer Internship” in the subject line.