Research
Research
Research is a fundamental aspect of the Psychology Department. All faculty maintain active research programs, and students play a crucial role as collaborators and research assistants. The Psychology Department has resources supporting a wide variety of research needs such as an eye-tracker, access to the survey system Qualtrics, and multiple spaces to support data collection. Through the department curriculum, Psychology majors take several research-focused courses, including a capstone.
Research resources
Qualtrics: Qualtrics is an online data collection platform used for creating and distributing online studies. Psychology students have opportunities to use Qualtrics in several research-focused courses.
Sona: Sona is an online platform used for managing in-person research studies and participant timeslots.
Research suite: The Psychology Department has a suite of research rooms that can be used for in-person data collection. These 9 small rooms are organized around a central hub where researchers can work while their participants are engaging in experimental tasks.
Eye tracker: Eye tracking is an experimental methodology used in a range of disciplines, including cognitive science, psycholinguistics, neurophysiology, computer science, and clinical psychology. The Psychology Department has an eye tracker, which is maintained and run by the iLab.
Statistical software: Macalester College provides access to statistical software specialized for the analysis of psychological data, such as RStudio and SPSS. These software packages can be installed on personal computers by Macalester students and can be downloaded from Macalester College’s Information Technology Services website. Please note that you will need to log in with your Macalester credentials in order to access the software.
Psychology Research Guide: Macalester’s Library maintains a research guide that is designed to assist students with various aspects of conducting psychological research, including databases for finding academic articles, tools for organizing sources, and lists of psychological tests and measures.
Research funding
Internal — Funding from Macalester
Summer Funding
- Parchem Fellowship. The Parchem Fellowship provides a transformative summer research opportunity for a psychology student who demonstrates exceptional promise in the field. This fellowship supports a student stipend for collaborative scholarly work with a faculty mentor, fostering advanced research experience in psychology.
The Parchem Fellow is selected by the psychology faculty, who consider factors such as the student’s research interests, relevant experience, and alignment with an available faculty mentor. - Harp-Pollack Internship. The Harp-Pollack Psychology Department Summer Internship was established by Macalester alumna and psychology major Mercedes Harp-Pollack (’04) to support students pursuing meaningful psychology-related work experiences. This funding provides one student with a full-time internship opportunity or two students with half-time internships, helping them gain valuable experience as they prepare for postgraduate study and careers in psychology.
Eligible students must be declared psychology majors and rising juniors or seniors during the summer of the internship. Applicants must have a psychology-related internship planned.
To apply, complete the Macalester Summer Internship Grant (MSIG) application, which opens at the beginning of the spring semester and is typically due mid- or late-February. In the MSIG application, indicate your interest in being considered for the Harp-Pollack Internship and respond to additional questions about your psychology interests and how the internship aligns with your goals and supports your future aspirations. For questions about the application process, you can either contact a Psychology faculty member or [email protected]. - Office of Student Research and Creativity (OSRC)
Academic year Funding
- Mink Fund. The Mink Fund is available to any Psychology major or minor and provides funding to support a research project they are conducting with, or under the close supervision of, a Psychology department faculty member.
Applications are due October 1 for the Fall semester, February 15 for the Spring semester, and April 15 for the Summer.
External — Funding from Outside Macalester
Student Research News
In recent years, more than 35 students have co-authored presentations at national professional meetings and more than 10 students have co-authored publications in top psychology journals.
Sofia Wong ’27 (Palo Alto, CA) was the 2025 Parchem Fellow and worked during the summer of 2025 with Professor Jean-Marie Maddux. Sofia plans to present her research at MidBrains, the Midwest Regional Neuroscience Conference hosted by the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine in October 2025.
Grace Watkins ’26 (San Angelo, TX) was the 2024 Parchem Fellow and worked during the summer of 2024 with Professor Jean-Marie Maddux. Grace presented her research at the annual Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience poster session at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago, IL in October 2024.
Robert Reiss ’25, Ruby Rogers ’25, and Kaiyuan Yang ’26, along with Professor Steve Guglielmo, presented their research at the Midwestern Psychological Association’s annual conference in Chicago in April 2025. Their work investigated people’s moral perceptions about different types of protest movements.
As part of the Indigenous Joy Collective, El Alcalá ‘24 worked with Professor Dr. Jill Fish to publish A Conversation on Indigenous Healing and Joy in an Urban Indigenous Landscape.
Bailey Haas ’19 (Ocean Springs, MS) was the 2017 Parchem Fellow and worked during the summer of 2017 with Professor Joan Ostrove.
Linda De Anda ’18 (St. Paul, MN) was the 2016 Parchem Fellow and worked durig the summer of 2016 with Professor Cari Gillen-O’Neel.
Emily Sanford ’17 (Seattle, WA) was the 2015 Parchem Fellow and did research about animal cognition with Professor Julia Manor during the summer of 2015.
Alexander Ropes’16 (Pella, IA) worked with Professor Steve Guglielmo on studies of morality as the department Parchem Research Fellow during the Fall of 2014.
Lydia Craig ’16 (Suttons Bay, MI) was accepted to the APA’s Summer Science Fellowship.
Jessica Pham ’16 (Hanoi, Vietnam) was awarded a summer fellowship at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute in the Undergraduate Research Program at the University of Minnesota.
Professor Joan Ostrove’s research group presented a poster at the 2015 Midwest Psychological Association conference in Chicago. The poster won an award from Psi Chi, an international honors society in psychology. The group included P.J. Murphy ’15 (Chesterland, OH), Leah Beckmann ’16 (Sayville, NY), Maddie Kornfeld ’16 (Denver, CO), Marium Ibrahim ’16 (Karachi, Pakistan) and Elena Torry-Schrag ’17 (Forest Grove, OR).