Our lab prioritizes inclusion and diversity in achieving and sustaining excellence in our research, training, and outreach. We are committed to an intellectual climate that is welcoming, nurturing, and challenging. We respect and value the full spectrum of human diversity in race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, body type, socio-economic background, age, disability, and national origin. Members of the lab work together to create an environment of inclusion, mutual respect, reciprocity, safety, and support (for example, we all worked together to craft this statement). We take an active stand against discrimination and bias.
To learn more about how to join our lab, read on.
As a research assistant (RA) or undergraduate scholar:
Our lab takes a team science approach to research, which means we work collaboratively on projects designed to ensure that everyone can both contribute and learn from each other. If this sounds like the kind of reciprocal and collaborative environment that you're looking for, please consider joining us! UC Davis students receive course credit for their time through PSC 190 in the fall and PSC 182 in the winter (descriptions below). No prior research experience is required. You should be interested in psychological research, able to attend our weekly lab meetings on Fridays 12-1:30pm, interested in collaborative and inclusive team science, and 100% reliable. Research assistants have the opportunity to become involved in many phases of the research process by collaborating on team projects that involve literature reviews, experimental design, data collection, and research presentations. Our regular lab meetings give you a chance to interact with each other and Dr. Ledgerwood, grow your research skillset, contribute your perspectives and insights to help make our science stronger, and acquire new skills in programs like Qualtrics, Excel, Medialab, R, and SPSS.
These positions provide an excellent opportunity to acquire hands-on research experience, contribute to science, and earn a letter of recommendation from a professor.
PSC 190 (fall)
Learn about dominant and alternative approaches to conducting psychological research, as well as the benefits and challenges of team science. Gain experience developing a research question, conducting a literature review, and designing a study to test your question in a collaborative team context. Note: You must be available for lab meetings on Fridays 12-1:30pm.
PSC 182 (winter)
Gain hands-on experience with collecting, organizing, and analyzing data in a collaborative team context. You’ll also have the opportunity to strengthen your science communication skills by creating and practicing a team research poster for the Undergraduate Research Center annual conference, held in the spring quarter! Note: You must be available for lab meetings on Fridays 12-1:30pm.
Our last round of applications for the fall closed on September 20th. If you applied before the deadline, you should have heard back from us by 9/25. We occasionally have a couple positions open up for the winter or spring, so you can check back in November or February to see if there's an announcement here about that. If not, then our next round of applications will open in May for Fall 2025.
**November 14th update: We're not recruiting right now but Dr. Westberg is! You can apply here.**
Thank you for your interest in our lab!
These positions provide an excellent opportunity to acquire hands-on research experience, contribute to science, and earn a letter of recommendation from a professor.
PSC 190 (fall)
Learn about dominant and alternative approaches to conducting psychological research, as well as the benefits and challenges of team science. Gain experience developing a research question, conducting a literature review, and designing a study to test your question in a collaborative team context. Note: You must be available for lab meetings on Fridays 12-1:30pm.
PSC 182 (winter)
Gain hands-on experience with collecting, organizing, and analyzing data in a collaborative team context. You’ll also have the opportunity to strengthen your science communication skills by creating and practicing a team research poster for the Undergraduate Research Center annual conference, held in the spring quarter! Note: You must be available for lab meetings on Fridays 12-1:30pm.
Our last round of applications for the fall closed on September 20th. If you applied before the deadline, you should have heard back from us by 9/25. We occasionally have a couple positions open up for the winter or spring, so you can check back in November or February to see if there's an announcement here about that. If not, then our next round of applications will open in May for Fall 2025.
**November 14th update: We're not recruiting right now but Dr. Westberg is! You can apply here.**
Thank you for your interest in our lab!
As an undergraduate honors thesis student:
Students who conduct an honors thesis research project in our lab must join the lab first as a research assistant to get basic research experience and learn first-hand about the type of research we conduct. If you are a current RA interested in completing an honors thesis in our lab, please plan to meet with Professor Ledgerwood to start formulating a research question that is interesting to you and that relates to our lab’s key topic areas during the spring quarter before you will start work on your thesis.
As a PhD student:
UC Davis has one of the top-ranked social psychology PhD programs in the nation. To learn more about the PhD program as a whole, click here. Application information can be found here; no GRE is required.
I will not be accepting new PhD students as primary mentees for Fall 2025, but I have some amazing colleagues whose labs you might be interested in joining (e.g., Dulce Westberg, Ariel Mosley, and Yuko Munakata) and I'm happy to work with students on secondary projects.
As a graduate student in our lab, you can jump on board an ongoing research project and/or start a new line of research that combines your own particular interests with one of the major research areas of the lab. As you progress through the program, you’ll move gradually toward more independent projects, culminating in a dissertation. Our lab combines a collaborative and supportive atmosphere with a stimulating research environment; we intentionally create and actively maintain an inclusive and anti-racist culture as a "home base" from which we can understand and act to transform inequitable systems. We value diverse perspectives, questions that challenge prevailing assumptions, methodological rigor, and creating an environment where each of us can bring our whole selves to our research and conversations. Students are encouraged to develop their own unique research interests within the broader framework of the lab, and also to work in multiple labs while at Davis to get exposure to different research areas and methodological approaches.
I will not be accepting new PhD students as primary mentees for Fall 2025, but I have some amazing colleagues whose labs you might be interested in joining (e.g., Dulce Westberg, Ariel Mosley, and Yuko Munakata) and I'm happy to work with students on secondary projects.
As a graduate student in our lab, you can jump on board an ongoing research project and/or start a new line of research that combines your own particular interests with one of the major research areas of the lab. As you progress through the program, you’ll move gradually toward more independent projects, culminating in a dissertation. Our lab combines a collaborative and supportive atmosphere with a stimulating research environment; we intentionally create and actively maintain an inclusive and anti-racist culture as a "home base" from which we can understand and act to transform inequitable systems. We value diverse perspectives, questions that challenge prevailing assumptions, methodological rigor, and creating an environment where each of us can bring our whole selves to our research and conversations. Students are encouraged to develop their own unique research interests within the broader framework of the lab, and also to work in multiple labs while at Davis to get exposure to different research areas and methodological approaches.
If you're interested in applying:
Prospective PhD students are sometimes advised to contact potential advisers by email to ask about current research interests and whether they're taking students. To make sure everyone has access to this information, I post it here (no need to email me separately -- if you are reading this, it counts as contacting me, because I literally copy and paste the below text in response to all email inquiries):
Thank you for your interest in our lab! I will not be accepting new PhD students as primary mentees for Fall 2025, but I have some amazing colleagues whose labs you might be interested in joining (e.g., Dulce Westberg, Ariel Mosley, and Yuko Munakata) and I'm happy to work with students on secondary projects!
These days, the collaborative work in our lab centers on three main lines of inquiry: (1) increasing what we learn from scientific research (e.g., How can we make psychological science more open and inclusive so that the questions asked and answers generated help us understand the full picture of how humans think, feel, and behave?), (2) understanding how people form ideas about their likes and dislikes (e.g., When someone says that they like friends who are intelligent, or they dislike a particular social group, where do those ideas come from?), and (3) how people think about hierarchical social systems (e.g., How do people of color conceptualize race and racism, and why do those conceptualizations matter?). If you apply to our lab in the future, you may want to connect to one or more of these themes in your application, or otherwise discuss why you think our lab would fit with and support your research interests.
For equity reasons, I have a policy of not talking individually with applicants before reading applications, but I look forward to reading your materials if you decide to apply in a future year. You can learn more about our lab and ongoing research here on our lab website.
Thank you for your interest in our lab! I will not be accepting new PhD students as primary mentees for Fall 2025, but I have some amazing colleagues whose labs you might be interested in joining (e.g., Dulce Westberg, Ariel Mosley, and Yuko Munakata) and I'm happy to work with students on secondary projects!
These days, the collaborative work in our lab centers on three main lines of inquiry: (1) increasing what we learn from scientific research (e.g., How can we make psychological science more open and inclusive so that the questions asked and answers generated help us understand the full picture of how humans think, feel, and behave?), (2) understanding how people form ideas about their likes and dislikes (e.g., When someone says that they like friends who are intelligent, or they dislike a particular social group, where do those ideas come from?), and (3) how people think about hierarchical social systems (e.g., How do people of color conceptualize race and racism, and why do those conceptualizations matter?). If you apply to our lab in the future, you may want to connect to one or more of these themes in your application, or otherwise discuss why you think our lab would fit with and support your research interests.
For equity reasons, I have a policy of not talking individually with applicants before reading applications, but I look forward to reading your materials if you decide to apply in a future year. You can learn more about our lab and ongoing research here on our lab website.