Play and Learning Lab

Happy Spring! This past March, members of the PAL Lab presented at the Cognitive Development Society Conference in Pasadena, CA. Pre-conferences exploring the Hidden Curriculum in Academia as well as Symposium Talks on Diversifying Research were particularly informative and fascinating. It was such a delight to be able to reconnect with collaborators from past projects at this conference.

Ruby Trujillo, an undergraduate research assistant in our lab, presented a study on mental rotation in young children through a touchscreen game.

Darby Krugel, another undergraduate research assistant in our lab, presented research on parent’s and their child’s preferences between spatial and non-spatial toys as well as between complex and simple spatial toys.

Emily Kramer, who serves as the lab manager for the PAL Lab, presented her research on the factors that influence young children’s performance on a commercial spatial toy, such as a shape sorter.

David Tompkins, a graduate student in the PAL Lab, presented his research comparing young children’s and GPT-4’s performances on a global-local processing task. 

Dr. Aaron Beckner, the postdoctoral researcher for the PAL Lab, presented his research on the spatial toy and age differences in performance for young children.

Special thanks to Dr. Marianella Casasola, Dr. Lisa Oakes, Dr. Vanessa LoBue, Dr. Valerie Bambha, and Van Pham for supporting the research for these PAL Lab members! 

So incredibly proud of Fátima for her outstanding presentation on Measuring Preschool Children’s Mental Rotation Ability at the McNair Symposium earlier this August! Her dedication to her research and academic pursuits is truly inspiring.🌟

What is the program?
The McNair Scholars program is the only federally funded program that supports underrepresented students to head into graduate school. The program consists of 1-2 years during your undergraduate career; it requires 8 weeks of involvement in on-campus research entering your senior year. The goal of the program is to diversify academia while providing undergraduate students with resources to get there.

When/how to apply for the scholarship?
Fátima highly recommends this program if graduate school is something you’ve been thinking about lately! Even if it’s in the back of your mind or if you don’t really know what going to graduate school entails, the program does an excellent job pushing you to figure out your long-term academic-goals, while preparing you to pursue higher education.

Fátima’s journey was enriched by the invaluable support of the PAL Lab this summer! A heartfelt thank you to Mary, Emily, Dr. Aaron Beckner, and Dr. Marianella Casasola as they have been her biggest support system throughout her involvement in cognitive development research and the McNair Scholars Program.

Join us in celebrating Fátima’s remarkable achievement and her dedication to expanding her academic horizons!🎉👏

Congratulations to Dr. Valerie Bambha for defending her dissertation! Although we will miss her dearly in the lab, we are so excited for her to start her postdoctoral research fellowship at The Children’s Learning Institute at UTHealth Houston in August.