Social Learning Lab @ Stanford
Lab Manager Application
Thank you for your interest in Social Learning Lab. To apply for the Lab Manager job, please provide your answers to the following questions. The questions below cover a broad set of skills and interests. If you don’t have much experience with some of them, don’t be shy to say so -- the fact that I’m asking these questions does not mean that I expect you to have all of these. The answers can be as brief as you want, but please make them as informative as you can.
1. Please provide the following information:
1-1. Current city of residence
1-2. Undergraduate Institution and degree
1-3. Cumulative GPA (please include both your GPA and Total GPA)
1-4. Month/Year of graduation or expected graduation
1-5. I am a US citizen / Permanent resident (green card) / Canadian citizen/ Mexican citizen (*We will not be able to sponsor a work visa; if you are a Canadian or Mexican citizen, you are responsible for obtaining a TN visa on your own)
2. Research Experience:
2-1. Tell me about your experience with empirical research in cognitive science or psychology. What was the research about, and in what capacity were you involved in the work?
2-2. What aspects of the work did you enjoy the most, and what have you learned from this experience?
2-3. What did you enjoy the least, and why?
3. Programming/Computer Expertise
3-1. Please comment on your coding experience (e.g., what languages, and how fluent?)
3-2. How comfortable are you with MATLAB? Have you had experience with PsychToolBox (if not, does it look like something you can teach yourself to use?)
3-3. If there’s a programming project you are particularly proud of, briefly describe what it was and why.
3-4. What is your preferred operating system? Mac/PC/Linux/something else? And how comfortable are you with using and troubleshooting each type of OS?
4. Experience working / doing research with children
4-1. Have you had experience working with children (if so, in what context)? What aspects did you enjoy the most, and what were the most challenging?
4-2. Imagine you’re about to design and run your own cognitive development research. Assuming that results from any age (i.e., newborns, infants, toddlers, preschoolers, children between 5 – 7yrs) would be theoretically interesting, what age group would you choose to study, and why? In what ways would this group offer data that would be interesting for you?
5. Experience with fMRI analysis
5-1. Do you have experience with fMRI analysis packages (e.g., SPM, FSL, AFNI, or Brain Voyager), and if so, how comfortable are you with dealing with fMRI data?
5-2. Have you had experience with other methods that measure brain activity (e.g., EEG, MEG, PET, NIRS, etc.)?
5-3. Imagine you’re scanning young children between ages 5 – 10 to measure their brain activity during a task. What do you think might be the most challenging aspect of analyzing these data?
5-4. Optional: If you have had experience with more than one analysis package, which one do you prefer to use, and why?
6. Statistical Expertise
6-1. List all statistics class you’ve taken.
6-2. Have you had experience in running statistical tests? What kinds of software packages have you used (e.g., R, SPSS, etc.)?
6-3. A group of 10 undergrads and another group of 10 grad students recorded their Rock Band scores to the same songs before and after drinking a six-pack. The results showed a main effect of group and an interaction. What would this graph look like? The direction of results is up to you, draw a graph and briefly explain.
7. Please provide a list of coursework that might be relevant to this lab and your research interests. What were your favorite classes, and why?
8. Long-term goals
8-1. What are your long-term goals and in what ways do you think this job will help you achieve these goals?
8-2. If you planning to apply for graduate programs in related fields after this job, what would be the degree and research questions you would like to pursue?
8-3. How long are you planning to stay in this job?
10. As a lab manager, you would be involved in many different kinds of tasks that differ in the skills they demand. Please rank-order these descriptions of different tasks/skills that you might need, from “most comfortable with” to “least comfortable with”.
• Attention to detail • Programming
• Data analysis • Scientific writing
• Interacting with children • Public outreach
• Working against a deadline • Organizing events
10. What is your favorite (empirical or theoretical) paper in psychology / cognitive (neuro)science? What made it interesting, compelling, inspiring, etc.?
11. Please provide the contact information for 2 - 3 individuals who could be asked for a recommendation (Name, Institution / Department, Email address).
Thanks for taking time to answer these questions! Please save your answers as a PDF file (saved as YourLastName_application.pdf) and send it along with your CV (saved as YourLastName_CV.pdf) to: .
**Thanks to Jamil Zaki (Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab) for sharing many of these questions!