Adrianna Sam is an undergraduate student currently earning a BA at Western Washington University. She shares about her experience working on research projects below.

1) When did you start working on research with Dr. Warren and in what capacity?

I started working with Dr. Warren in the fall of 2021 through my work study position as a faculty assistant in the Department of Management at Western.

2) What are the different activities you are working on in your projects?

In my first year as a research assistant, I have worked with Dr. Warren on three projects. I co-authored a book chapter on gender-based violence intervention in Congo, a book chapter on intragroup hostility toward immigrants, and an article on the relevance of positive psychology in global issues.

3) What skills have you developed through your research assistantship?

While working on these projects, I have strengthened my researching and professional writing skills as well as learned more about the publication process. I learned APA formatting and writing and gained experience in data collection and analysis. I’ve been given many opportunities to help write and edit manuscripts, which I’m extremely grateful for, because as challenging as it is, it’s very rewarding to contribute to these important works this way. I’ve also improved my collaboration and organizational skills being a research assistant. I really enjoy working with Dr. Warren because I am pushed to adapt and further my ideas and creativity.

4) What are your ambitions for how you want to use this research experience for your future professional goals?

I plan to apply the research experience and skills I’ve gained to my interests and future endeavors. I plan to major in business administration. However, regardless of what I choose to study, I know everything I’ve learned as a research assistant will be used in my education, future jobs, and interactions. And I hope to continue researching.

Haley Bock is a MS in Experimental Psychology student at Western. She shares about her experience working on research projects below.

1) When did you start working on research with Dr. Meg Warren and in what capacity?

I saw Dr. Meg Warren (and Dr. Michael Warren and Dr. Samit Bordoloi) speak at the Center for Cross Cultural Research about their research project on allyship and reached out to see if I could be involved. I started working on multiple collaborative projects in spring of 2021.

2) What are the different activities you did on each of the projects?

I have been working on 4 projects: a paper examining observer responses to allyship against pregnancy discrimination, a project exploring how demographic indicators (e.g., income, education) may be associated with allyship attitudes and behaviors, development of the Anti-Racism Allyship Readiness Questionnaire (AR-ARQ) and a qualitative study of barriers to allyship.

In working on these projects, I have done a variety of activities, such as run data analyses, conduct literature reviews, design qualitative coding manuals, and help in manuscript writing.

3) What skills you have developed through your research assistantship?

Throughout my time working on these projects, I have been able to develop several new skills. For example, I have been provided firsthand experience crafting and refining qualitative methodology. Being able to uncover meaning behind an open response is both challenging and rewarding, and I am grateful for the opportunity to gain a better understanding of this process and its utility. I have been introduced to the publication process, a process central to careers in academia. This has provided me with experience I can both use as I cultivate confidence in my own research, and as I continue to collaborate with various researchers. Working with Dr. Warren has also provided me the opportunity to work with large datasets, which can include several exploratory measures that can prompt new research questions we can explore.

4) What are your ambitions for how you want to use this research experience for your future professional goals?

My experience with Dr. Meg Warren has not only been instrumental in development of my credentials as a graduate student, but also as a professional. I have been introduced to other faculty and experts, such as Dr. Michael Warren with whom I am working closely on several projects, and Dr. Tejvir Sekhon and Dr. Samit Bordoloi with whom we are co-authoring papers. As it is my short-term goal to be accepted into a PhD program, it is a long-term goal to make change in my community as a researcher. It is important to have mentors that grant you collaborative experience when you’re trying to improve your qualifications, but it is invaluable to have mentors who also serve as role-models.

Leslie Aguilar is a current student earning her BA in International Business with minor in Spanish at Western Washington University. She shares about her experiences assisting on research.

1) When did you start working on research with Dr. Warren and in what capacity?

I started working with Dr. Warren my senior year at Western through my work study position in the management department in the College of Business & Economics.

2) What are the different activities you are working on in your projects?

During my time as a research assistant, I developed and organized an article database for psychological wellbeing research in Fiji and the Pacific islands, collaborated on a quantitative analysis for a project on work engagement of women during COVID-19, reviewed literature and wrote it up for a paper on boosting the wellbeing of expatriate/international students during the pandemic, reviewed literature for a project on predictors of support for gender equality and environmentalism and assisted in putting together an initial survey with measures, reviewed literature to help address peer reviewers’ questions for a project on gender-based violence in Congo, and organized references for a paper on male allyship strategies.

3) What skills have you developed through your research assistantship?

Working with Dr. Warren has presented a handful of skills that have helped me directly in my academics as an undergraduate student as well as skills that will help in my future endeavors. Data collection, organizational skills, and data analysis skills were strengthened as I assisted on the various projects. I was able to cross over these skills into my classes and felt better equipped to tackle assignments and class projects. The best takeaways from this work have been cultivating creativity, persistence, and interpersonal skills. Each project I helped on was a stepping-stone to my realization of the bigger picture behind the work researchers do. Sometimes there isn’t a clear-cut answer or direction to take but incorporating my creative mindset from personal interests into developing concepts for research has been one of the best experiences. Throughout this journey, I learned the value of having persistence and optimism behind finding answers. As a result of assisting Dr. Warren, I had many opportunities to work on my interpersonal skills through the exchange of ideas, collaborating and networking, and being aware of what everyone brings to the table.

4) What are your ambitions for how you want to use this research experience for your future professional goals?

The experience of helping as a research assistant in combination with other diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work I’m involved in as well as being a business student has directed me to a passion I want to pursue. I would ultimately like to give back some of the resources I have gained from my college experience to local communities that need attention in terms of academic success. I feel confident about the skills I learned from this research experience to help prove DEI related issues in school settings and be able to use my business background to implement solutions. It has been a full circle connecting the dots to find what I really want to do, and I have enjoyed every part of it.

Sierra Meyer is a BA in Psychology student at Western. She shares about her recent experience beginning new research together.

1) When did you start working on research with Dr. Warren and in what capacity?

I began working with Dr. Warren through an independent study in the spring quarter 2021. I first met Dr. Warren when I took her Management 311 course in the Fall of 2020 and we discussed our similar research interests in allyship, diversity, and equity during office hours. This is where I asked if we could work together on research!

2) What are the different activities you are working on in your projects?

I have worked with Dr. Warren on all aspects of the research process of a cross-cultural project on character strengths influencing attitudes and actions toward current social issues (e.g., environmentalism, gender equality). This work was published in the Middle East Journal of Positive Psychology and I presented this research at the Middle East Psychological Association conference 2022 in Kuwait (virtual conference). I have actively helped with conducting initial literature review on climate action in Fiji and social class allyship in Dubai. I have also co-authored papers on the character and climate action in Fiji, and wellbeing of medical students in Yemen. I assisted on a review of psychological research in Fiji, and a book chapter on emotional expression of leader-allies, and as a co-peer-reviewer for another paper.

3) What skills have you developed through your research assistantship?

Throughout the past year, I have gained experience in survey building, gaining approval and communicating with the Institutional review board, collecting and analyzing data (both qualitative and quantitative), and conducting literature reviews. This research opportunity has immensely improved my professional APA writing skills. I have also had the opportunity to work in collaboration with other researchers, assisting with the communication of their research and literature reviews, as well as APA formatting in text, citations, and tables.

I have led one published paper with Dr. Warren, for which I gave an educational presentation (attendees earned continuing education units) at the Middle East Psychological Association conference in March 2022.

4) What are your ambitions for how you want to use this research experience for your future professional goals?

I am passionate about psychology research and plan to pursue this work for my career. I will apply the skills I have learned in future research positions and this experience will be beneficial when I apply for post-graduate programs in psychology.

Allison Schwam is a MS in Experimental Psychology student at Western. She shares about her experience working on research projects below.

1) When did you start working on research with Dr. Warren and in what capacity?

I started working with Dr. Warren in the winter of 2020. I saw Dr. Warren speak at the Center for Cross Cultural Research about her research on allyship and was very interested in her line of research. After seeing her presentation, I reached out to her to introduce myself and she has granted me the opportunity to collaborate with her on several projects as a voluntary research assistant.

2) What are the different activities you did on each of the projects?

I have worked with Dr. Warren on two different papers regarding cross-cultural happiness – examining wellbeing profiles and positive psychology interventions – and another paper regarding male allyship and wellbeing in the academic workplace. Between these projects, I have edited manuscripts for APA style, addressed reviewer comments, assisted in running data analyses, conducted literature reviews, and assisted in manuscript writing.

3) What skills have you developed through your research assistantship?

Through my time working with Dr. Warren, I have had several opportunities to grow as a researcher. I have gotten firsthand experience in writing, revising, and editing manuscripts and addressing comments from reviewers, which is incredibly valuable for someone like me who is at the start of her career. Beyond that, working with Dr. Warren has also provided me with a new perspective on how to approach crafting a story in a manuscript. I greatly admire Dr. Warren for her abilities to draw unique connections from existing literature and to communicate complex research ideas in an accessible manner. These are skills that cannot necessarily be taught in a classroom, and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with someone who has allowed me to develop these skills. I am certain that, through my work on these projects, I have become not only a better writer, but more importantly a better researcher with a greater ability to critically think about research I am conducting and consuming.

4) What are your ambitions for how you want to use this research experience for your future professional goals?

I am about to graduate from the Experimental Psychology Masters program here at Western, and I intend to apply to PhD programs in Social Psychology this upcoming fall. Working with Dr. Warren has allowed me to develop and hone my skills as a researcher that I am sure will be invaluable to my future career in academia.

 

Rachael Waldrop graduated with a MS in Experimental Psychology in 2020. She shares about her experience working on research projects below.

1) When did you start working on research with Dr. Warren and in what capacity?

I was introduced to Dr. Warren in January of 2019 when she presented to our psychological research lab about her research on allyship. I have since been working with Dr. Warren as a research assistant, consulting on existing and new projects that we have disseminated through conference presentations and journal publications.

2) What are the different activities you did on each of the projects?

Dr. Warren and I have collaborated on various research projects that intersect our interests of applying a positive psychological perspective to understanding and improving intergroup relations. Through our projects together, I have helped theoretically develop a framework for understanding the values and underlying regulatory process of allies who aim to positively navigate intergroup dynamics. In developing this framework, we have conducted a scoping literature review to delineate the positive counterparts of prejudice reduction models to promote a shift toward understanding factors that guide positive intergroup behaviors. For other projects, I coded qualitative data to understand the positive effects of emotional expression/regulation of leader-allies (Allyship project) and the experiences and well-being of teachers in Dubai, UAE who implement positive psychological education programming (International project). I have also supported the investigation into testing a positive psychological allyship intervention for leader-allies in the workplace through quantitative analysis and editing.

3) What skills have you developed through your research assistantship?

Although I had developed strong research skills through the Experimental Psychology MS program at Western, working with Dr. Warren exposed me to a different variety of skills that I otherwise would not have built. Specifically, I feel stronger in my ability to work with and interpret qualitative data, I am more familiar with academic literature pertaining to organizational and cross-cultural psychology, I have taken on more independent roles in developing theories and writing manuscripts, I have presented research at academic conferences, and I have been able to establish my research identity through our stream of work. Most importantly, I have felt properly supported and appropriately challenged by Dr. Warren’s mentorship style.

4) What are your ambitions for how you want to use this research experience for your future professional goals?

I am currently in between schooling–I recently graduated with my master’s from WWU and plan to pursue a doctoral degree in the psychological sciences. While I am garnering relevant work experience in the meantime, my collaboration with Dr. Warren allows me to continue working on research that will be pertinent to my PhD pursuits.

 

Katie Winkelman graduated with a BA in Communication Studies and Business Minor in 2020. She shares about her experience working on research projects below.

1) When did you start working on research with Dr. Warren and in what capacity?

I originally started working on research with Dr. Warren in my Junior year at western through volunteering on projects. That soon spiraled out to become my own independent study!

2) What are the different activities you did on each of the projects?

I coded qualitative data on the positive effects of emotional expression of leader-allies, led a quantitative analysis through R on a project about women’s productivity and burnout during Covid-19, created libraries of articles we accumulated through literature reviews and helped brainstorm different frameworks to look at different problems for a project on positive relational allyship behavior, aided in perfecting APA style tables/charts/citations across papers, and presented my research studies on allyship communication practices and inclusive leadership at conferences.

3) What skills have you developed through your research assistantship?

There are the obvious skills you learn on research projects like academic writing, citing sources, how to read a journal article really quickly, how to execute and construct different methods of analyzing data, and working with a team. But, the most valuable skill I was able to develop is my ability to critically think about complex problems and identify all of the contributing factors to a problem and then hone in on potential interventions and solutions. These research projects really challenge the WAYS in which you think and how you approach problems, as a result I’m much better equipped to assess scientific results/conclusions, and critically think about the context and implications of all information I come into contact with. These projects have really helped me create my own sense of self in how I think about and relate to the world of information around me, and have also made me so much better at communicating about social issues with folks who are new to the conversation. I also have become much more comfortable in not knowing – the more you dig into these complex problems the more you realize you don’t know – which is humbling and energizing!

4) What are your ambitions for how you want to use this research experience for your future professional goals?

I am entering into a PhD program in Management and Organizational Studies at University of Massachusetts Amherst largely because of my involvement on these projects and hope to land a professorship after graduation where I can continue to research allyship and teach students about its importance. But don’t turn away just because I’m pursuing a career in academia– these projects have also been immensely helpful in working in the professional world in consulting where I was able to pitch to and land top clients like Microsoft Azure, The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and private equity firms who hired me onto their teams largely because of my research skill sets. Folks love to hire people who can really dig into problems and solve them, and research equips you really well for this!