Psychology 195B: Fieldwork in Cognitive Science
Top of New York
Contact: Abad Morel
E-mail: abadmorel@gmail.com
Address: Yonkers, NY | REMOTE
Phone: 929-377-0485
Website: topofny.com
Description of Organization and Population Served:
At Top of New York, we are working to create a business directory that connects consumers with local businesses. We are creating a platform where businesses can advertise their services as well as offer users the ability to discover new local places they've never seen before. Ultimately, we hope to bring businesses and consumers together and develop a platform where they can connect.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
At Top of New York, we believe that design plays a vital role in any successful project, product, or initiative. We believe that designers play a critical role in ensuring that the human experience remains at the forefront of any such endeavor. At Top of New York, you will have the opportunity to make a real impact with your design skills.
Special Qualifications:
UX/UI Design Intern Responsibilities:
-Leverage a human-centered design process to deliver an easy-to-use user interface and user experience
-Research customers, competitors, and products
-Develop personas, scenarios, and user stories
-Create wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity mock-ups
-Develop and implement usability testing
-Design for accessibility standards
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 20
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
This internship requires an understanding of how users interact with various designs and products. Cognitive science students are the perfect candidate for this role as they study concepts relating to psychology, such as aspects of human behavior.
VA Loma Linda Healthcare System
Contact: Christian Herrera Ortiz
E-mail: christian.herreraortiz@va.gov
Address: 11201 Benton Street
Phone: 9098257084 ext. 7291
Website: https://www.va.gov/loma-linda-health-care/
Description of Organization and Population Served:
At the Auditory Research Lab, we investigate perceptual deficits in the population of Veterans. We use psychophysics, mathematical modeling, computational modeling and non-invasive brain imaging (fMRI and EEG).
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
Responsibilities will be assigned according to interest and ability. Possible responsibilities might range from collecting data to coding experiments to preparing manuscripts for conferences.
Special Qualifications:
None. Training will be provided.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 7
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
Perception and mathematical modeling of perception are the core subjects of the Cognitive Sciences.
Data Science Assistant for Fashion AI/ML Startup
Contact: Jack Payne
E-mail: jackp@kolaidenim.com
Address: 8780 19th St. #647 Alta Loma, CA 91701
Phone: 9522218131
Website: www.kolaidenim.com
Description of Organization and Population Served:
We are KolAi, LLC, a small company focused on process improvement for the denim and wider fashion industries. Our core product is a software tool that allows denim factories and brands to create high quality designs for laser finishing denim. Our market is worldwide, with a large presence in Asia, South America, and the Mediterranean area.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
We are always working to improve our UX, AI backend and data capabilities. We are a small team, comprised of two Neuroscience PhDs, a denim expert, and a wide array of associates across the worl. To that end, the internship work may involve any of the following and others, depending on the skills of the student and our business needs at the time.
Data preparation and cleaning
Image editing
Researching new AI methods
Coding neural networks
Automating data processing
UI/UX research
Cloud computing
Deploying AI servers
Wordpress
Social Media
Special Qualifications:
Ideal candidates should have strong skills in
Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence
Neural Networks
Cloud Computing
Data analysis
Image Editing
Researching scientific journals
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 6
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
Our core tools are built in using neural networks, and two of our core team are Neuroscience PhDs. We took our skills in research to identify a problem and to build a solution for it.
Neural networks mimic aspects of the way that neurons and brain systems function. They are incredibly flexible tools, but also, much like the human brain, very sensitive to inputs. It's still a cutting edge field, with each year showing new architectures and increasing complexity.
Feel Goods – Marketing Internship
Contact: Brian Wong
E-mail: brian@feelgoods.co
Address: 8300 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90046
Phone: 4157132517
Website: https://feelgoods.co/
Description of Organization and Population Served:
Feel Goods is a passion-driven wellness brand on a mission to make health more approachable and fun.
We craft natural drink mixes using premium ingredients designed to support one’s immunity, gut health, and overall wellbeing. For us, taste also plays a crucial role in how people enjoy our products and we strive to create the most delicious, but functional drinks this world has to offer.
At Feel Goods, we believe most brands approach health & wellness in a dull, boring way. We’re changing that. Our goal isn’t to market to an ever-ambiguous “wellness consumer”, but to people that desire a more relatable and exciting relationship with our products. We aren’t afraid to take risks and are always seeking unconventional ways to connect with the modern human.
After selling out of our mixes multiple times over the last year, we are looking for creative interns to help us grow our community through producing entertaining & educational content across our social media channels.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
⁃ Content marketing across social media channels (primarily TikTok, Instagram, and Youtube). This means ideating and scripting new content ideas based on social/cultural trends that allows us to connect with consumers in an entertaining, but educational way.
⁃ Creator and influencer outreach
⁃ Forming digital partnerships with brands
⁃ Community building with customers and new followers
⁃ Potentially collaborating with the rest of the team to execute larger scale marketing initiatives such as product launches, exclusive drops, promotions, etc.
Special Qualifications:
Avid consumer of social media content
⁃ Experience working in a fast-paced startup environment.
⁃ Deep passion for holistic health and wellness.
⁃ BONUS: You’re comfortable being on camera and would want to shoot with us in our West Hollywood office!
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 10
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
We are looking for creative interns that seek a deeper understanding of consumer psychology and behavior. Specifically, our goal is to develop a brand that nurtures a different relationship with the modern customer in a fun, relatable way. At the same time, we seek to educate others about their health through various mediums while making them understand why our natural products can benefit them. Our minds are constantly evolving and reacting when presented with new marketing initiatives from the countless brands these days — we strive to find methods in order break through that noise.
Hardware Engineering Intern
Contact: Jeff Hendricks
E-mail: jeff.hendricks@nextsense.io
Address: 4055 Nelson Avenue, Concord CA 94520
Phone: N/A
Website: https://www.nextsense.io/
Description of Organization and Population Served:
NextSense, Inc. is a neurotech startup based in Mountain View with an auxiliary lab in Concord (both residing in Northern California). The company's product is a wearable, in-ear device that monitors, records, and analyzes brain activity. Building on EEG technology, the purpose of the device is multifaceted, ranging from sleep improvement to Epilepsy and Alzheimers. The population served depends on the devices purpose, which varies per user (based on the aforementioned conditions). Though the device is not yet available to the general public, NextSense is already far along in clinical trials and used by some pharmaceutical companies.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
The HWE intern's main responsibilities include, but not limited to: cable and connector board assembly, tecticoat production and testing, device quality control, and coating.
Special Qualifications:
Chemistry lab experience, soldering, basic knowledge on coding/electrical engineering
Hourly Commitment Per Week: ~25 hours per week
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
This internship has everything in common with Cognitive Science. As previously mentioned, NextSense's product studies the users cognitive health—via brain waves—to improve sleep and better help patients with Epilepsy and other neurological diseases.
Institute for Education Innovation
Contact: Jasmine Graham
E-mail: jasmine@instituteforedinnovation.com
Address: 46 Woodbine Avenue
Phone: 4243824235
Website: https://www.instituteforedinnovation.com/
Description of Organization and Population Served:
IEI is a national think tank serving the education industry. Our goal is to bring superintendents and education technology companies together to solve issues in the K-12 space. We are fully remote.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
The intern would take up various data analysis tasks and help out with the current projects. We are especially looking for a marketing focused intern that could help with social media, email marketing campaigns, competitor analysis, SEO, website upkeep, etc. Depending on available projects, the intern can come up with their own project (to be reviewed and approved by leadership) based on interests and skills.
Special Qualifications:
Interest in the education industry, curious and helpful attitude.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 20 hours/week
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
Creating solutions for the education industry requires an understanding of learning processes in general. Cognitive Science curriculum includes such material that will be beneficial when talking with superintendents, edtech companies, and other solution providers.
Kardder Tech Internships
Contact: Marcus Tanner
E-mail: marcustanner310@gmail.com
Address: 21150 Oxnard Street Suite 970, Woodland Hills, CA 91364
Phone: 4243451931
Website: www.kardder.com
Description of Organization and Population Served:
Kardder is a new social networking app designed to help users find other members nearby with similar interests, hobbies, and more. Whether a user is looking for a relationship, new friends, travel buddies, or workout pals, Kardder provides all the features needed to connect and build relationships with others.
With other social media and networking apps, the attention is focused on influencers or businesses who have an established following. Kardder shifts the attention towards encouraging users to create and stay in touch with their local community. Members are able to share text or media updates with their follower and others nearby in order to let others know what they’re up to or where they’re headed. The timeline is organic and we do not interfere with what members or their community would like to share with each other.
Kardder is now officially released on iOS and Android. We are currently seeking several interns to help with different tasks across all our internal departments. When reaching out to us, please let us know what position you are most interested in. Students can work in multiple positions if interested.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
1. Kardder UX/UI Research Intern
Responsibilities
1. Participate in company research projects and analyze strategies to increase number of users and improve experience for current users
2. Recruit participants, create interviews, distribute interviews, create summary reports.
2. Kardder Backend Engineering Intern
Responsibilities:
- Maintain backend during weekends when team is offline
- Repair minor backend issues when they occur
- Applicants will not be required to create new features. They will be required to maintain our backend services and APIs
3. Kardder Marketing Intern
Responsibilities
- Create campaigns to increase number of app users and retain current users
- Helps shape the image and copy of our company
- Help support and establish media presence (Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, etc.)
Special Qualifications:
1. Kardder UX/UI Research Intern
Qualifications:
- Strong desk research/secondary research ability
- Ability to implement user interview projects, participant recruitment, interview execution, produce summary reports
- Sociable, self-driven, quick learner
- Proficient in English
- Able to commit a minimum of 3 days per week for at least 3 months
- Being a part of a club or fraternity/sorority on campus is preferred but not required.
2. Kardder Backend Engineering Intern
Qualifications:
- Proficient in Java, MySQL, and PHP
- Able to commit a minimum of 3 days per week for at least 3 months
- Foundational knowledge of basic computer science principles such as data structures and algorithms
- Currently pursuing a BS/BA in Cog Science or a field related to Computer Science
- Previous experience is preferred but not required.
3. Kardder Marketing Intern
Qualifications
- Friendly and open demeanor with ability to maintain confidentiality
- Dependable and proactive
- Desire to build a career in brand/entertainment marketing industry
- Able to commit a minimum of 3 days per week for at least 3 months
- Previous marketing experience is preferred but not required.
- Being a part of a club or fraternity/sorority on campus is preferred but not required.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 21
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
The goal of cognitive science is to understand why we do the things we do, think the way we think, and how we perceive the world around us. Cognitive science helps us understand fundamental principles about design. A great user experience is a perfect mix of concepts from psychology, design principles and continuous feedback from the users. We would like to work with cognitive students from UCLA in order to improve our app’s UI/UX and marketing campaigns as we believe they are well suited for the immediate responsibilities we are facing as a company.
Speckle
Contact: Kenichi Sugai
E-mail: kenichi.sugai@myspeckle.com
Address: N/A
Phone: N/A
Website: https://www.myspeckle.com/
Description of Organization and Population Served:
Speckle is working to make public speaking fun and accessible to people from all backgrounds. Our public speaking app is launching in early 2022, and will provide users with immediate AI feedback on their speeches, and create an online community of public speakers.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
Interns will work on app UI/UX and web design, help us to launch our new app and website, and make subsequent interface improvements. Interns will also conduct user interviews, and get the opportunity to test design ideas and incorporate feedback. Our team is small, so interns will be able to work on a variety of projects depending on their skills and interests.
Special Qualifications:
Previous experience in design, UI/UX, or marketing is preferred, but not required.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 10
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
We are looking for interns with a strong understanding of the human mind, an eye for design, and a passion for helping people achieve their goals, all of which are key components of the cognitive science major. We expect interns to use their cognitive science knowledge to help us design eye-catching interfaces, make our app more intuitive and engaging, improve the targeting learning methods of public speaking, and reach new audiences.
Venue Marketplace
Contact: Kyndra Bibler
E-mail: kyndra@venue.com
Address: 14439 E Peak View Rd
Phone: 4806504730
Website: venu.com
Description of Organization and Population Served:
Venue is a premium e-commerce marketplace offering millions of brand name products with flexible payment options. When shopping at Venue.com, customers can enjoy a streamlined shopping experience, 24/7 customer support, and the luxury of payment flexibility.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
The Marketing Intern will be responsible for formulating SMS content for subscribers, as well as brainstorming and implementing new marketing strategies. The Marketing Intern will also A/B test SMS campaigns to understand which characteristics of a text message push users to complete a purchase and drive the most revenue.
Special Qualifications:
A general interest in e-commerce, Market Research, or User Experience is preferred.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 20
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
A strong understanding of the mind as a system and human behavior is necessary for this internship. Cognitive Science students have a unique understanding of the intersection of psychology, digital media, and computation. The intern will use their background in Cognitive Science to work towards understanding consumer behavior and consumer decision making.
Blue Cedar – Product Marketing Internship
Contact: Nikfar Khaleeli
E-mail: nkhaleeli@bluecedar.com
Address: San Francisco, CA
Phone: (415) 329-0401
Website: www.bluecedar.com
Description of Organization and Population Served:
Value stream management for mobile is an emerging space. Blue Cedar offers a value stream management platform for mobile that eases the pain of deploying mobile apps. Mobile app deployment encompasses the activities performed after development is complete in order to get mobile apps to end users. You’d think that it is straightforward but it isn’t. Gartner estimates that by 2023, 70% of organizations will use value stream management to improve flow in the DevOps pipeline, leading to faster delivery of customer value. The Blue Cedar Platform provides a unique set of services and integrations with DevOps toolchains, which enable the orchestration of mobile app deployment activities. Our platform also provides metrics such as mobile app delivery lead time and mobile app deployment frequency, and delivers data-driven recommendations to improve mobile app release velocity.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
As the Product Marketing Intern, your responsibilities would include the following: read analysts research on Value Stream Management and build knowledge about the various steps in the mobile app deployment process, research market and competitor trends to effectively position the Blue Cedar Platform, collaborate with the Vice President of Product to develop a content calendar, publish new content (e.g., blogs, web copy, short guides) as agreed to in the content calendar, assist with digital demand generation campaigns (e.g, writing headlines for ads) and social media marketing (e.g., writing updates for LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook), track performance metrics through tools such as Google Analytics and Hubspot and provide weekly reports, get hands on experience with the Blue Cedar Platform, and help to determine the product backlog, which is the list of new features, changes to existing features, bug fixes and other activities that the development team will work on.
Special Qualifications:
- Excellent written communication skills. You must enjoy writing and write well, as this is an important part of the role.
- Curious with the ability to quickly learn enough about unfamiliar topics.
- Driven and hard-working.
- Ability to take direction and meet deadlines.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 10-15 hours per week
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
With value stream management being an emerging space, being the Product Marketing intern will require the application of Cognitive Science principles and concepts in order to think from the users' perspective and how they behave and process information as you generate online content.
Chedda Production Adoption Researcher
Contact: Lionel Levine
E-mail: lionel@chedda.me
Address: 88 S. Garfield Ave. Alhmabra, CA 91801
Phone: 213-444-6622
Website: http://chedda.me
Description of Organization and Population Served:
Chedda is a Los Angeles-based technology startup looking to develop a novel solution to the problem of loose change proffered by cashiers when customers pay for items using cash. With the Chedda app, retailers will be able to make immediate, micro-deposits, into customer checking accounts, allowing the residual change to be more effectively utilized
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
Our research intern(s) will be asked to conduct interviews with business owners, cashiers, and customers to better understand motivations and barriers to adopting new technologies, propose, devise, and test marketing strategies that could prove most effective at getting stakeholders to adopt this technology.
Special Qualifications:
A general interest in marketing and brand development is desirable. Any previous experience in retail is a plus.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 10
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
The field of Decision Science or how to motivate individual choice using empirically validated methods, is a critical component of cognitive science, and we would look to draw on our interns’ expertise in this domain in matters from user experience design, to marketing planning.
Additionally, we would want this approach to be as rigorous as possible and would lean on our intern’s Cognitive Experimental Psychology background for developing robust experimental design for surveys and focus groups.
Software Engineering Internship @ ICIKL
Contact: Pranav Peddinti
E-mail: pranav@ickl.com
Address: San Ramon, CA | REMOTE
Phone: Contact by Email with Resume
Website: https://icikl.com/
Description of Organization and Population Served:
We are a young team recently founded by a pair of students from UC Irvine who are looking to create sustainable products for everyday use. Currently, we are developing a compostable phone case using natural materials(cork) and are looking for team members/interns to help with the product launch. We are looking to make the world a better place by creating highly reusable, compostable, high quality items ranging from phone cases to software applications to support our ideals.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
ICIKL is looking for interns that can either handle one of the following responsibilities. (A) Software Engineer for a Shopify site. The software engineer intern will have mostly free reign on the design of the website outside of small improvements suggested by the rest of the team. (B) Graphic Design. This intern will create/help with the design of the website from a user interface sense, and will also help design advertisements with the whole team.
Special Qualifications:
We are looking for highly motivated, self starters who are willing to attend at least one weekly meeting and are willing to help create a better world. Please include your resume/message in your email on the position that best fits you and we will get back to you as soon as possible. We are also looking for interns who are willing to work remotely as we are an entirely remote organization.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 7-10 (Highly flexible and remote)
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
Each responsibility is a multi-disciplinary internship position relating to Cognitive Science in many different ways such as, but not limited to: User Experience, Computer Science, Psychology of Consumers, Business. Our interns will need to call back on their coursework to discover how to create a positive user experience when attempting to sell to consumers. They will also have to fall back onto researching the psychology of advertising and figuring out how to best illustrate the ideals of our company. We hope you are willing to create a better world and are excited to hear from you!
Product Marketing Intern
Contact: E Lai Sterns
E-mail: proud@prideplaces.com
Address: 50 Ocean Ave #1, San Francisco, CA, 94112
Phone: 314-420-7193
Website: prideplaces.com
Description of Organization and Population Served:
Pride Places is THE site dedicated to truly bridge the gap between LGBTQ consumers and the businesses who actually support us across the entire United States. It is an online business directory for consumers of the LGBTQIA+ community, who can discover some of the best hidden gems, big and small. While businesses connect with our community on a whole new level and play a role in keeping our community thriving.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
The intern will be responsible for understanding and communicating our product and vision. They will create product interview questions, and interview users to provide feedback. They will understand and document our buyer’s process, including where they get information, and the who, what, when, and why behind the decisions they make. Then drive changes to our sales and marketing processes based on what they learn. From this, they will develop a marketing plan in conjunction with our marketing team, including key activities and budgets to support the retention of existing customers and the acquisition of new customers. They will also work alongside design and engineering teams as a thought leader to drive solutions to customer pain points.
Special Qualifications:
N/A
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 10-20
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
Cognitive Science students are the perfect candidate for this role as they are able to bridge many disciplines in their coursework similar to how a product marketer must wear many hats and connect the dots to synergize positioning across teams and with the end consumer. Gaining deep understanding through discovery and analysis of human behavior lies at the foundation of marketing and cognitive science students will have much experience in this domain through their coursework. The company itself is a small tech startup and cognitive science students will be able to contribute their knowledge of computer programming and design thinking that they have gained in their major and extracurriculars.
A Software Engineering Internship with Pearl
Contact: Tim Connors
E-mail: tconnors@ucla.edu
Address: 200 De Neve Drive, Los Angeles, CA
Phone: 9083913462
Website: http://www.trypearl.io
Description of Organization and Population Served:
For young professionals frustrated with the process of finding a job online, Pearl offers a 'personal recruiter in your pocket', linking you via text-message to a team of recruiters who can help you discover and instantly apply to the perfect opportunities. Our technology allows for 2-way conversations at scale by striking a nuanced balance between pre-programmed chat and human conversation.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
Pearl is looking for software engineers to help us develop our technology. We have two internship tracks: front-end and back-end. The front-end track focuses on our web and mobile display using Angular. The back-end track focuses on the backend logic using NodeJS. We occasionally work out of Covel Commons, so it's easy to come and work with our team!
Special Qualifications:
For our front-end we use Angular. For our back-end we use Node. Please only apply if you have at least 6mo of experience working with one or both of these frameworks.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 7-10
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
Cognitive Science lies at the intersection of machine thinking and human thinking. Our hybrid solution lies at the intersection of those two things. This position grants students the opportunity to advance their computer programming skills in a fast-paced, real-world startup environment.
AllPeople Co
Contact: Rachel Lindauer
E-mail: rachel@allpeople.co
Address: San Luis Obispo, California
Phone: (618)971-7710
Website: https://allpeople.co/
Description of Organization and Population Served:
AllPeople is a paradigm-shifting eCommerce marketplace starting a movement unlike any other that gives our customer’s the control of which charities they want to donate to in their purchases. AllPeople offers sustainable, safe, eco-friendly, and environmentally responsible products at competitive prices and takes it a step further by working in partnership with non-profit organizations eager to be selected as the ‘give back’ option of choice. We provide eco-conscious consumers with the ability to purchase everyday products while simultaneously supporting organizations that they want to see succeed. We pledge to give back an astounding 10 times more than other charitable giving platforms and protect our planet, our families, and our communities.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
Ensure product descriptions, images, ingredients, and other content are visible in an appealing and appropriate manner • Implement accurate search and filtering mechanisms • Update and improve elements and the composition of the page • Consistently create well-designed, tested code using best practices for website development, including mobile and responsive site design • Create websites and user interfaces, using standard HTML/CSS practices, while incorporating data from back-end databases and services • Create and maintain workflows with teams to provide visibility and to ensure workload balance for consistent visual designs • Develop or validate testing schedules, addressing all browsers and devices to ensure various computers can access content • Work quickly and carefully to complete small edits requested by customers, develop plans for completing larger projects, collaborate with colleagues, and suggest new solutions to improve existing websites • Perform UI designs and coding, creating reusable objects and templates, wireframes for web pages and email templates; manage maintenance, updates, expansions, and scaling of each design
Special Qualifications:
Knowledge of and experience with coding, website development, or digital design • Team-player, responsive, and willing to take on new challenges all while maintaining organizational skills • Flexible and willing to work remotely
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 10
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
This internship requires an understanding of how users react and interact with different designs in mobile and desktop devices. This understanding can be learned from Cognitive Science, which touches upon concepts relating to psychology, such as how humans react and process different types of information.
Analyst Internship with the MITRE Corporation
Contact: Lionel Levine
E-mail: llevine@mitre.org
Address: 202 Burlington Rd, Bedford, MA 01730
Phone: 213-444-6622
Website: http://mitre.org
Description of Organization and Population Served:
As a not-for-profit organization, MITRE works in the public interest across federal, state and local governments, as well as industry and academia. We bring innovative ideas into existence in areas as varied as artificial intelligence, intuitive data science, quantum information science, health informatics, space security, policy and economic expertise, trustworthy autonomy, cyber threat sharing, and cyber resilience. We operate FFRDCs—federally funded research and development centers. FFRDCs are unique organizations that assist the United States government with scientific research and analysis; development and acquisition; and systems engineering and integration. We also have an independent research program that explores new and expanded uses of technologies to solve our sponsors' problems.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
Collaborating with the UCLA School of Engineering through the eHealth Data Analytics and Research Lab, this project explores using smart devices to collect passive sensing data that can interpret an individual’s mental state, and detect the potential onset of a mental health crisis. This internship involves supporting the development of a novel smartwatch application “Warrior Wellness”, designed to detect acute mental health crises in special operations soldiers. Our client is the US Special Operations Command and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Our engineering team works closely with our intern team to use advanced machine learning, programming, and research methods to develop a final product that helps military personnel adapt to mental health conditions. Responsibilities of the intern include recruiting participants and conducting weekly follow ups, interacting and reporting weekly to the development team, documenting and tracking data, creating visualizations and analytics, as well as contributing to market research and literature reviews.
Special Qualifications:
Applicants should have strong organizational and communication skills, be willing to learn, and take initiative. Proficiency in data analytics is preferred and an understanding in conducting research studies is recommended. Upper division coursework in Psychology, Cognitive Science, or Neuroscience is also strongly recommended.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 7-10
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
The interdisciplinary nature of the Cognitive Science major has prepared students to combine practical knowledge from different areas of research. This internship utilizes technology and artificial intelligence to gain a deeper understanding of the user’s mind. By being able to monitor the user’s psychological state of mind through an analysis of various physiological metrics, we aim to provide support in times of crisis. With interns having a background in understanding user behavior as well as machine learning, it serves as a special advantage for projects like this. Students will also be gaining experience in reading and writing research papers as well as client communication. Helping create experimental design, contributing to the IRB approval process, and writing up reports also is an important skill to have in the Cognitive Science academia.
Bridges to Life (RiiSE Intern)
Contact: Ashlynn Joseph
E-mail: apjoseph@smu.edu
Address: Remote
Phone: 9727467483
Website: https://www.bridgestolife.org/our-program
Description of Organization and Population Served:
Rehabilitating Images of Incarceration through Stories and Engagement (RiiSE) serves both incarcerated individuals and the greater society by aggregating stories & statistics of incarceration through a restorative justice lens. RiiSE is determined to empower the public with tools to advocate for criminal justice reform and amplify incarcerated voices on restoration and rehabilitation.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
The intern is responsible for contacting and scheduling interviews with restorative justice volunteers, ex-offenders, criminal justice experts, and Bridges To Life (BTL) graduates. Additionally, the intern will edit interviews and by the end of the quarter, the aim is to iterate and implement a new website for this digital archive.
Special Qualifications:
Intern must have knowledge in graphic and web design software including Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc., and a strong eye for design and experience developing creative assets. Intern must also have an understanding of design thinking and be able to iterate their designs.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 7-10
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
As a RiiSE intern, students will apply concepts learned from Cognitive Science courses (e.g., cognitive biases, visual perception, research methodology, user experience design, etc.) to conduct interviews and develop solutions that enrich the website viewing experience. This directly correlates to the responsibilities of a RiiSE intern who will utilize their understanding of human cognition to brainstorm, visualize, prototype, evaluate, and design a new user-centered interface for RiiSE website/archive, focusing on the needs of the archive’s users.
Brimhall & Associates
Contact: Nancy Brimhall
E-mail: nbrimhall@brimhallassociates.com
Address: 1200 South Hope Street, Suite 301, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Phone: 310 339 8993
Website: http://brimhallassociates.com
Description of Organization and Population Served:
Brimhall & Associates is a boutique philanthropy consulting firm, headquartered in downtown Los Angeles. Since 2004 it has served local, regional and international clients with an emphasis on capital campaigns and major gifts fundraising for the nonprofit community. Please peruse the website at www.brimhallassociates.com for further information. In Q4 2020 we anticipate the launch of a special educational project: www.changelab-fundraising.com and see our Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1870765049/change-lab.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
As an intern in philanthropy, you will have an opportunity to use your interest in nonprofit organizations to expand what you know and see how strong fundraising and nonprofit management can better support organizational outcomes. In addition, you will experience a philanthropy business firsthand in both its internal operational needs and its personalized work with clients and their specific needs. As we can accommodate, you will sit in on client planning meetings, take on assignments that will have you developing aspects of their particular needs that come forward, as well and participate in content and game design conversations related to the Change Lab learning project.
Special Qualifications:
Must have good oral and written communication skills as well as an interest in the work of nonprofit organizations. Ideal candidate is entrepreneurial, flexible, open to ideas and utilizing their interests to develop a specific work suited to them, works well with a team as well as independently, has a school or personal schedule that allows for Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the downtown LA office (post COVID). Important that the candidate is interested in committing to a minimum three-month engagement.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 15
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
Applying learning aspects of classroom education to the practical application process is invaluable to achieving the greatest outcome for the Change Lab educational concept.
Bruinshack
Contact: Daniel Tang
E-mail: contact@bruinshack.com
Address: Remote
Phone: (909) 522-7742
Website: https://bruinshack.com/
Description of Organization and Population Served:
Bruinshack is an online service to help UCLA students look for apartments in the Westwood area. Founded by a UCLA student, we provide apartment reviews and contact information to give confidence to students when they are apartment hunting
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
We are looking for Web Development Interns, UX/UI Interns, Data Analytics Interns, and Marketing Interns. Bruinshack is looking to expand our most viable product (MVP) to be used by UCLA students in the near future. Each intern will play a vital role in rolling out Bruinshack to the UCLA community.
Special Qualifications:
All interns must be creative, self-starters who are eager to learn. Qualifications vary for each position. Please send us an email that includes your resume, the position you are interested in, and why you are interested in interning at Bruinshack.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 10
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
All interns will be required to think about the users of our site and Cognitive Science has given you the tools to understand consumer behavior and how people process information. Like the major, our work at Bruinshack is interdisciplinary and we know the Cognitive Science major has prepared you well to handle the multi faceted nature of working for a tech startup.
Casa Colina Hospital and Centers for Healthcare
Contact: Amy Zheng, PhD
E-mail: azheng@casacolina.org
Address: 255 E. Bonita Ave
Phone: 9095967733
Website: https://www.casacolina.org/
Description of Organization and Population Served:
Casa Colina Hospital and Centers for Healthcare is a non-profit organization that offers medical and rehabilitative services to individuals who have sustained catastrophic physical and cognitive events such as brain injury (e.g. stroke, traumatic brain injury) and spinal cord injury, among other conditions that lead to short/long-term disability. The Casa Colina Research Institute conducts clinical studies to identify novel therapeutic interventions to enhance care for people with disabilities. Research is conducted as a collaboration with scientists, doctors, and other medical and rehabilitation professionals.
Description of Fieldwork Project and Responsibilities of Intern:
Casa Colina Research Institute is seeking interns to assist in the various research studies conducted here. Responsibilities will depend on the available position but could include subject recruitment, experimentation, data analysis, literature review, etc. Remote work may be possible for certain roles.
Special Qualifications:
We are looking for individuals with the following traits: organized, diligent, accountable, motivated, and self-reliant. Good communication skills and bedside manners are needed for positions that work directly with patients. For more technical positions, previous research experience (especially in neuroimaging), statistics knowledge, and programming experience are preferred.
Hourly Commitment Per Week: 10
How does this relate to Cognitive Science?:
At Casa Colina Research Institute, we use multimodal approaches, including behavioral, genetics, and neuroimaging, to study how the brain changes as a result of brain injury and therapeutic intervention.