Graduate Students
Dr. Braitman accepts graduate students from three programs offered through the Department of Psychology at Old Dominion University: Health Psychology (Ph.D.), Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology (Ph.D.), and Experimental Psychology (M.S.).
Dr. Braitman’s mentorship model recognizes that graduate students are future colleagues in the field. She strives to provide guidance and share her expertise, while recognizing the agency of students in her lab. Students are provided with more training early in their graduate careers, transitioning to more independence as their skill set expands. Graduate students are provided with numerous opportunities to collaborate on every aspect of research (developing research questions and associated study designs, creating surveys, securing IRB approval, beta testing, data management and study coordination, data cleaning and analysis, conference presentations, and manuscript writing). Students are also encouraged to lead their own projects, in addition to academic requirements such as the thesis and dissertation. Dr. Braitman also has a focus on professional development. Related to this, graduate students are also given the opportunity to mentor less advanced graduate students, and/or undergraduate research assistants. Students are also encouraged to collaborate with one another. Students are often invited to help with grant writing, and encouraged to create their own submissions. Opportunities and training activities are tailored to the career goals of the students in the lab. Some students enter the lab with very clear goals in mind; Dr. Braitman helps others identify through opportunities and activities what the student enjoys, and helps them to develop or refine goals during their time in the lab.
Undergraduate Students
Undergraduate research assistants (URAs) are critical members of the Alcohol ETOH Behaviors Lab. The key contribution to the lab includes data collection by running participants through study protocols. In addition, URAs may have opportunities to contribute to literature reviews, beta testing of study protocols, codebook generation, data coding, and other miscellaneous tasks related to the research process. URAs may also be invited to work on guided research projects exposing them to all aspects of the research process, including developing research questions, data analysis, and results dissemination, culminating in research presentations at scientific conferences. Finally, professional development activities are a key aspect of time in the lab for URAs. We discuss careers in psychology, preparation for graduate school, and other topics focused on career development.
Undergraduate students interested in volunteering in the lab as research assistants should email a completed application (Application) to Dr. Braitman (abraitma@odu.edu). Once your application is received, a graduate student coordinator will contact you to schedule an interview.
