UCLA Undergraduate Research Interns 2007-2008
Alcala, Hector (Psychology & Political Science)
IRSP Graduate Student Advisor: Megan Mulet

I will be working with Megan Mulet in order to analyze relationships within the Burning Man Art Festival. Specifically, I hope to gain a deeper understanding of the Burning Man phenomenon by using varied analytical tools in order to track patterns within the event. I hope this will allow me to understand how such a unique event can take place on such a large scale.
Alvik, Marie (Psychology)
Faculty Research Advisor: Rena Repett
IRSP Graduate Student Advisor: Darby Saxbe

I will be assisting Darby Saxbe on a research project based on data collected by the Center for Everyday Lives of Families (CELF) at UCLA. The CELF study looks at the kinds of activities family members engage in during an “average week.” Darby and I have been working with physical tracking data, which adds up to thousands of observations representing parents and children's activities during that family's study week. The data documents the time of day, which family member was performing the activity, in what area of the house and what objects they used to perform the activity. I have assisted Darby in categorizing the data into broad activity categories such as leisure, chores, and communication as well as subcategories such as television and creative play within the broader categories. Next we will start generating hypothesis. We are interested in how mothers and fathers differ in their ratio of chores to leisure activities and whether the different ratios of chores between spouses are associated with marital satisfaction.
Del Valle, Arturo (Math/Econ and Programming minor)
IRSP Graduate Student Advisor: Megan Mulet

I will be working with Megan Mulet to explore relationships among statistical data from Burning Man. By continuing to publish a census for the annual event, we create access to a wide array of variables ranging from age, income, and gender to sexual orientation, primary method of transportation, and more. In working with Ms. Mulet, I hope to expand my experience on statistical methods and tools.
Denny, Ashleigh (Physiological Science)
Faculty Research Advisor: Martie Haselton
IRSP Graduate Student Advisor: Elizabeth Pillsworth

Many aspects of women's behaviors, perceptions, appearance and preferences vary accross their ovulatory cycle. Evolutionary theory allows us to make detailed predictions about the patterns of change based upon the costs and benefits of different reproductive strategies, fertility and environment. In this study, we examine women's voices, appearance and grooming, body odor and social preferences across the ovulatory cycle. As a research assistant I'm responsible for scheduling participants at high and low fertility phases and administering study tasks.
Gonerko, Christina (Anthropology)
Faculty Research Advisor: Marjorie Goodwin

I look forward to working with Dr. Goodwin on her research studying family interactions, and how parents socialize and discipline their children. We will be looking at the verbal and non-verbal modes of communication used, such as the use of directives, gesturing, body posture, tone, and facial expression. We will see if certain methods are more effective than others, and how the parents' communication style impacts their relationship with their children.
Hovanesian, Auni (Aesthetics, Music History)
Faculty Research Advisor: Alan Fiske

I am working on a research team, headed by Alan Fiske, studying Fronto-temporal Dementia, a degenrative disease that inhibits socio-moral emotions but leaves cognition intact. I specifically work on the issue of self perception as related to both the brain and the culture. What makes my work even more interersting is that patients lack insight into their disorder.
Jamasbi, Ara (Psychology)
Faculty Research Advisor: Chris Dunkel Schetter

I am currently working on a grassroots project to understand the causes of disparities in birth and child health outcomes. I have been assigned as an intern interviewer in this study of the influences of stress and support at the individual, family, neighborhood, and community levels. Through this project, I will be learning how to communicate and interact with people of various backgrounds and socioeconomic status, which will help me later on as I, hopefully, move on to medical school and interact with patients.
Koff, Rachel (Psychology)
Faculty Research Advisor: Ted Robles
IRSP Graduate Student Advisor: Kathryn Brooks

I will be assisting Kathryn Brooks researching the psychological and biological pathways by which social relationships affect our health. We will be studying romantic partners and their physiological responses to stressors and sympathetic support by looking at the relationship between wound healing and a stressful/supportive interaction with a romantic partner. Not only do we gather valuable information about wound healing, but the couples that come into our lab also get a valuable chance to talk freely and openly about problems and possible solutions within their relationship. I am very excited to be a part of this growing and dynamic area of psychology research.
Leak, Kendra (Anthropology)
Faculty Research Advisor: Martie Haselton
IRSP Graduate Student Advisor: Elizabeth Pillsworth

I will continue my work in Dr. Haselton's Social and Evolutionary Psychology Lab this quarter. We track changes in women's behavior, voices, appearance and social preferences accross their ovulatory cycle. We analyze our data in relation to women's fertility and the evolutionary benefits of different reproductive strategies. This study will help us better understand women's sexual psychology and the variables that may affect women's desires and behaviors.
Mussard, Erika (Psychology)
Faculty Research Advisor: Rena Repetti

This research, conducted by Professors Rena Repetti and Belinda Campos, is on the social interactions in family life and emotional tone. I will be applying a behavioral coding system to the video footage that has been collected for this project. This project involves many methods such as naturalistic behavioral analysis, longitudinal designs and questionnaire data. I will be involved in the naturalistic behavioral analysis.
Parker, Delana (Psychology)
Faculty Research Advisor: Rena Repetti

As an undergrad researcher on the Parent-Child Project team, I have been examining video data and transcripts taken from the daily lives of thirty-two families. We are currently searching for interactions between parents and children that involve talk of children's activities or experiences outside of the home. Over the next few quarters we will look more closely at these interactions and begin to analyze them. This data provides us a unique window into the everyday interactions which occur between parents and children, which may ultimately lead to a better understanding of conversational dynamics and emotional expression within families.
Pisor, Catherine Anne (Anthropology; Psychology)
Faculty Research Advisor: Dan Fessler

In the coming quarters, I am excited to continue my work with Dan Fessler in evolutionary anthropology. Professor Fessler investigates social relationships via studies on the determinants of interpersonal trust and cooperation, as well as through research on the factors that influence the relative attractiveness of prospective mates for long-term versus short-term sociosexual relationships. I will be active in both laboratory behavioral science research (the cooperation project) and on-the-street data collection (the mate selection project); I will play a part in both discussions of research design and the empirical component of the projects
Salcedo, Nicholas (Psychology)
Faculty Research Advisor: Shelley Taylor

I am conducting a study regarding Military Veterans Transitional Assistance. I am analyzing the factors that may contribute to veterans not seeking social support services at the V.A. medical centers. Lack of social support for returning combat veterans may lead to problems such as psychological distress, occupational hardship, physical health problems and extreme coping mechanisms (e.g., suicide, homelessness, and alienation from society).
Usahacharoenpron, Proud (Psychology)
Faculty Research Advisor: Martie Haselton
IRSP Graduate Student Advisor: Elizabeth Pillsworth

I am very fortunate to be working on the Women's Voice Study with Dr. Haselton and Elizabeth Pillsworth. This study investigates women's voices, physiology and choices. As a lab assistant, the past two quarters, my duties have included recruitment and prescreening of experiment participants. Recently I have taken on managerial responsibilities such as supervising participant files and records and organizing data and other lab information. This complex project has taught me invaluable reserach and organizational skills that I hope will be useful to me in the future, when I run my own studies.
Villalpando, Vanessa (Anthropology)
Faculty Research Advisor: Linda Garro
IRSP Graduate Student Advisor: Mara Buchbinder

I will be participating in an ongoing study conducted by the UCLA Center on Everyday Lives of Families (CELF), analyzing data on the health and well-being in working families. While working closely with Dr. Linda Garro and Mara Buchbinder (IRSP graduate trainee), I will be attending data analysis sessions with the rest of the CELF Family Health Portraits team and will have responsibilities such as coding video, watching videotape to code scenes expressing particular themes, and contributing to the development of one or more family health portraits. I am thankful to Dr. Garro for this wonderful learning experience.
Summer Research Interns 2007
Chapman, Rava (Psychology)
School: Alabama State University
UCLA Faculty Research Advisor: Jeffrey Wood

I participated in the 2007 Summer Research for Undergraduates Program (SRUP) under the Interdisciplinary Relationship Science Program (IRSP). This was a great experience. It allowed me to develop more as a researcher and gave me some clinical experience as well. I was able to work with Professor Jeffery Wood on a project about parent-child relationship. I focused on parental intrusiveness. In addition to great research opportunities provided by this program, I was able to meet many people who I have remained in contact with. This was a great way to spend the summer.
Cortes, Rodolfo (Psychology)
School: UC Berkeley
UCLA Faculty Research Advisor: Sandra Graham

It was a great honor to have interned at UCLA with Professor Sandra Graham. With the help of IRSP Graduate Affiliate Alice Ho, I analyzed the role of reciprocal friendship as a buffer against loneliness and social anxiety in a large ethnically diverse sample of urban sixth-graders. The findings will be presented at the Society for Research on Adolescence in 2008. In the future, we hope to turn the work into a publication.
Apart from the internship itself, IRSP afforded numerous networking opportunities. Notably, I met Professor Jeff Wood and proposed a follow-up study of the children from his earlier research. That study is getting underway and we are very excited. None of this could have been possible without IRSP; thus, I sincerely encourage any student interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in the relevant fields to apply to and choose IRSP
Smith, Zaneta (Psychology)
School: Spelman College
UCLA Faculty Research Advisor: Tom Bradbury

My research this summer examined the intergenerational transmission of marital discord using a case study approach of a couple who participated in the UCLA Marriage and Family Development Project. By viewing the available data of videotaped laboratory interactions, audiotapes, and questionnaires, I gathered information on the couple. To some extent, their marital discord and divorce after 10 years of marriage may have been a product of marital discord and divorce in their parents’ marriage. My examination of 4 variables--parental divorce, aggression, parental religion, and communication -- suggested that these factors, along with interpersonal problems, may continue through generations and contribute to marital discord.
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