Graduate Student Officers 2025-2026

2 positions (1 Chair and 1 Vice Chair) | Elected positions

$1000 bonus paid at the end of winter quarter upon successful completion of duties to the Chair.
$250 bonus paid at the end of winter quarter upon successful completion of duties to the Vice Chair.

Additionally, no winter TAship will be assigned unless desired or a 5th year (a fall and spring TAship will still be assigned-this position does not provide TA- relief). The Chair will take on the majority of the duties. The Vice Chair will learn the processes to provide a smooth transition the following year in which the Vice Chair becomes the Chair and a new Vice Chair is elected.

Requirements: Preference given to those in second through fourth years, cannot be past sixth year, and must be making sufficient progress towards degree.  

Summary of Duties: To aid in the selection process of new graduate students and help organize the events and visitors for Open House.

• Meet with Graduate Coordinator and Admissions Committee Chair review timeline
• Review and rate applicant files
• Sit on Admissions Committee and give input on applicants
• Send welcome email and offer cell phone number to all visiting applicants (main "go-to" person during their visit)
• Be available prior to and during all open house activities
• Coordinate pick-up and drop-off of applicants from the airport
• Greet students at the hotel upon arrival
• Coordinate campus tours
• Be available or coordinate volunteers to be in the Grad Lounge during interviews to give directions (include a copy of the interview schedule)
• Organize an informal dinner with current grads
• Solicit volunteers to help with open house activities
• Organize and attend open house activities

2 positions | Elected positions

$600/yr bonus paid quarterly upon successful completion of duties.

Summary of Duties: To improve job placement for psychology grads

Duties Include:

• In addition to other duties listed below, survey grads yearly and tailor 1-3 meetings per quarter based on the survey of grads ensuring that meetings provide a "safe space" for grads to feel free to discuss both academic and nonacademic career paths. These meetings may include coordinating visits by outside speakers (including academic and non-academic career employees) 
• Be familiar with Career Services resources and use or incorporate as appropriate
• Update and maintain an online presence (e.g. blog, wiki, google drive group) with assistance of the department Web Developer
• Organize the annual career symposium (alternates between academic and alt-academic every year): 
  • Contact speakers
  • Lead panels
  • Reach out to current faculty to contribute
  • Gauge student interest
  • Hold a colloquium/reception after (in years when the panel is academic)

6 positions | Elected positions

$100 per colloquium hosted, $50 per colloquium or job talk co-hosted bonus paid quarterly upon successful completion of duties.

Summary of Duties: To help with the organization of weekly colloquia and job talks.

Duties Include: There is a comprehensive checklist which will be reviewed with colloquium reps at the orientation meeting (early fall quarter), but the duties may include (and are not limited to):

• Coordinate pick-up and drop-off of speaker
• Organize meetings with faculty and escort speaker
• Advertise talks via email and flyers
• Organize a breakfast and/or lunch with graduate students
• Organize post-colloquium reception
• Assist the Faculty Recruitment Representatives with publicizing job talks and organizing the job talk reception and breakfast.

1 position | Appointed by application to the Graduate Coordinator.

$600/year bonus paid quarterly upon successful completion of duties.

Requirements: Have extramural funding; Must be available in the summer to assist with reviewing grant applications for grads and have sufficient time in the fall to carry out duties.

Summary of Duties: To assist the grad population with finding and applying for extramural funds.

Summer:

• Contact first years in the summer prior to their entrance to introduce them to major funding opportunities (NSF, NDSEG, Ford Fellowship, DOE) and to provide preliminary materials to help them plan their applications  
• Lead introductory workshop during 1st year orientation  
• Create a grant app calendar with interim draft submission deadlines and multiple rounds of mock reviews  

Fall:

• Serve as a resource to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year grads applying for major funding:  
  • Review multiple drafts of each application
  • Compile and share both successful and unsuccessful previous applications
  • Provide information on the review process
  • Serve as a general resource to these students
• Coordinator with faculty to review applications
• Contact students who have advanced and encourage them to apply for internal and external funding (many applications are due in winter). 
• Provide all students with a list of the most current set of fellowships, grants, and awards  

Winter:

• Encourage advanced students to apply for major funding (Koppitz, Autism Speaks, NIH, collaboratories) and edit their grant applications
• Solicit advice from previous years' successful awardees and compile into a document
• Update students with new information about grant applications and advice
• Coordinator with faculty to review applications

1 position per speaker/candidate | Appointed by application to the Graduate Coordinator.
*Recruited off cycle once a faculty search and the subfield has been determined

$100 per position paid at the end of the primary recruitment quarter upon successful completion of duties.

Summary of Duties: To aid in the selection process for new faculty and help organize events during and surrounding the candidate's job talk

Duties Include:

• Help candidates set up for their job talk
• Record each candidate's job talk and post it for departmental viewing
• Escort candidate around department and to meetings
• Pick candidate up and drop candidate off at the airport, their hotel or campus as required
• Organize a breakfast and/or lunch with graduate students for the candidate
• Solicit feedback from grads about the candidates
• Attend faculty meetings to represent the position of graduate students on applicants by presenting the graduate students' feedback in a meaningful way.

1 position | Elected position

$1000/year bonus paid quarterly upon successful completion of duties.

Requirements: Must be available in the summer following year of assignment to help with TA issues that might arise during summer session – with a strong preference for in-person availability during summer session. 

Summary of Duties: (1) Be a source of information to the graduate community and to aid in any TA issues. (2) Serve as a resource for graduate students who have questions about mentoring 199s/194s and serve as a liaison to the climate committee.

Duties Include:

• Coordinate departmental TA training each academic quarter and as needed (includes hands-on training train on how to grade short answers, how to hold office hours, how to design a lecture, how to create an excel gradebook, and how to deal with difficult TAs or instructors),
  • Meet with 1st years during orientation
  • Pass around powerpoint/resources
  • Creating a master doc of typical duties to centralize information
• Meet with 1st year TAs when FA/WI starts to go over specifics\
• Update and promote TA resource guides each quarter or as necessary
• Attend training provided by Prof. Christina Gremel incorporating parts of the CIMER curriculum  
• Update and promote Mentorship Manual each quarter or as necessary 
• Attend climate committee meetings
• Mentor graduate students and faculty on how to provide an optimal research experience for RAs, including conflict resolution 
• Coordinate graduate mentor training each academic year and as needed  

2 positions (1 Chair and 1 Vice Chair) | Elected positions

TA assignment priority

$1000 bonus paid at the end of winter quarter upon successful completion of duties to the Chair.
$250 bonus paid at the end of winter quarter upon successful completion of duties to the Vice Chair.

The Chair will take on the majority of the duties. The Vice Chair will learn the processes to provide a smooth transition the following year in which the Vice Chair becomes the Chair and a new Vice Chair is elected.

Requirements: Need to be available for the month of September, preference given to those who are in their second through fourth year, cannot be past sixth year, and must be making sufficient progress towards degree.

Summary of Duties: To be a liaison between the department and the graduate community as well as to provide help in organizing departmental events.

Duties Include:

• Coordinate 1st year buddies  
• Send a welcome letter to incoming grads  
• Liaison for standard and proposed grad events and targeted outreach opportunities (e.g., quarterly socials, grad-chair lunch hair, all-grad meetings, off-campus outreach, etc.)
• Help Admissions Rep organize Open House events (including helping organize volunteers to pick- up and drop-off students from the airport and possibly help during the interview process and Friday night's Happy Hour/Dinner) 
• Organize spring elections (including emailing grads with instructions for voting and emailing an announcement once elections are closed)  
• Assist Graduate Coordinator with Little APS and organize post-Little APS Happy Hour and post-little APS activity (includes organizing set-up and clean up) 
• Attend grad relevant faculty meetings and communicate with faculty on behalf of the grads  
• Meet quarterly with Graduate Coordinator  
• Be a source of information about grad policy and procedures to other grads, and additional duties as required.

2 positions | Elected positions

No bonus provided.

Summary of Duties: To be a liaison to and source of information about the GSA

Duties Include:

• Attend GSA council meetings, vote in-person on graduate student issues
• Serve on GSA or campus committees
• Forward appropriate emails to grads
• Help grads with events that may be sponsored by the GSA

1 position | The professors for PSYC 201AB will have input into selecting the Stats Advisor.

$1,000/yr bonus paid quarterly upon successful completion of duties.

Position sometimes paired with PSYC 201AB TA.

Requirements: Must be available to provide statistical expertise during the summer. 

Summary of Duties: To aid the psychology graduate community in all statistical matters. 

Duties Include:

• Assist grads with any questions regarding data analysis and experimental design such as but not limited to:
  • teaching interested students how to perform simple statistical analyses (e.g. t-tests, ANOVAs,regression) using a statistical package (e.g. SPSS, JMP, R, Python, MATLAB, etc.)
  • providing guidance on the types of statistical analyses available to solve more advanced problems 
  • answering questions relating to best-practice experimental design.
• Use the department’s Stats Advisor email account to respond to Stats Advisor inquiries. 
• If concurrently holding the PSYC 201AB TA position, ensure responsibilities are separated.

1 position | Appointed by application to the Graduate Coordinator and the MSO

$600/year bonus paid quarterly upon successful completion of duties.

Requirements: Must be available in the summer to continue to update the website - can be available remotely.

Summary of Duties: To improve, and implement changes to, the department website in addition to regular updates to the front page, news and events sections.

Duties Include:

• Work with faculty and staff to assess the need for changes and updates to website design of the Psychology CMS websites  
• Implement design changes and updates to better represent the department  
• Format and post news stories and events to front page 
• Must know or be willing to learn:
  • HTML/CSS basics to be able to utilize more functions within the CMS.
  • website structures  
• Manage psych-webmaster@ucsd.edu  
• Answer relevant/technical emails about the website (or forward them to the appropriate people) 
• Learn CMS functionalities/limitations (lots of webdev tasks are wrapped into this one; e.g., uploading files/pictures, changing link names, swapping pages, updating banners, creating new content).