Graduate Student Officers 2023/2024

The annual election and appointment process happens during Spring quarter and results are announced at Little APS (early June). 

Admissions Representative

Pixie Rose

Career Transition Representatives

Zeve Marcus

Colloquium Representatives

Janna Wennberg

Megan Mulhinch

Jeffrey Xing

Leah Ettensohn

Thomas Morton

Extramural Funds Officers

Alexis Smith-Flores

Maya Carleton

Faculty Recruitment Representative

Computational Basis of Behavior Search: Mohan Gupta

Social Psychology: Shuai Shao

Graduate Mentorship Facilitator

Debra Lindsay

Graduate Representatives

Katie Van Alstyne

Emma Miller

GSA Representatives

Liam Conaboy

Thomas McCauley

Graduate Talk Series Representatives

Kyla Whitelock

Outreach Officers

Inez Zung

Liam Conaboy

Outreach Representatives

Natalie Paredes

Kyla Whitelock

Dania Ibrahim

Megan Mulhinch

Senior TA

Katie Van Alstyne

Statistics Advisor

Khuyen Le

Website Developer

Sunyoung Park

Officer Eligibility and Duties

To be considered for a Graduate Officer position, students must be in good academic standing and be making sufficient progress towards their degrees.

Admissions Representative

(1 position) Elected position. $1,200 bonus paid at the end of winter quarter upon successful completion of duties. 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)

Requirements: Preference given to those in second through fourth years, cannot be past sixth year, and must be making sufficient progress towards degree. Must be available (remotely) during winter break to review applications.

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

Duties Include:

• 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 weekend activities
• Help arrange and execute alternate visits

Career Transition Representatives

(2 positions) Elected position. $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)

Colloquium Representatives

(6 positions) Elected position. $100 per colloquium hosted, $50 per colloquium or job talk co-hosted.

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.

Extramural Funds Officers

(2 positions) Appointed by application to the Graduate Coordinator. $1,000/yr bonus paid quarterly upon successful completion of duties.

Requirements: 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.

Duties Include:

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

• 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

• If need be, compile a panel of peer and/or faculty reviewers to supplement grant editing
• 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

• 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

• Gather reviews from successful and unsuccessful grant applicants for future years. Code them so we can better understand which elements are essential to successful grant applications.
• Encourage students to apply for major funding (e.g., NIH) over the summer and help with the logistics of the grant
• Edit essays for all grant applications, and check for new fellowships available in the fall

Faculty Recruitment Representative

(1 position per search) Appointed by application to the Graduate Coordinator. $600 per faculty search, paid at the end of the primary recruitment quarter upon successful completion of duties.

*Recruited off cycle once a faculty search and the subfield has been determined

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: 

• Review the files of those asked to give job talks to give feedback and insight to the search committee
• 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.   

Graduate Mentorship Facilitator

(1 position) Elected position. $1,700/yr total bonus paid out quarterly upon successful completion of duties. 

Summary of Duties: 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: 

• Attend training provided by Prof. Christina Gremel incorporating parts of the CIMER curriculum 
• Update/Promote: 
  • Mentorship Manual each quarter or as necessary 
  • Department resource pages and Video Series 
• Department mentorship:
  • Mentoring graduate students and faculty on how to provide an optimal research experience for RAs
  • Mentoring graduate students on conflict resolution with RAs
  • Coordinate graduate mentor training each academic year and as needed (i.e., summer research students/interns such as STARS) 
• Attend climate committee meetings

Graduate Representatives

(2 positions) Elected position. TA priority. $1,700/yr bonus paid quarterly upon successful completion of duties.

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
• Organize departmental Fall picnic (includes shopping for food and drink, soliciting volunteers to set-up, staffing barbecues and cleaning up, being available for rental employees to direct where equipment is placed, etc.)
• Organize a grads BBQ (historically at beach)
• Assist with and rallying students for the holiday party events
• Organize quarterly socials for grads
• 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)
• Distribute annual graduate student survey (includes emailing survey to grads in spring quarter and encouraging participation
• Work with department admin to coordinate annual fall quarter all-grad meeting
• Assist Graduate Coordinator with Little APS and organize post-Little APS BBQ 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 monthly with Graduate Coordinator
• Be a source of information about grad policy and procedures to other grads, and additional duties as required.

Graduate Student Association Representatives

(GSA) Representatives (2 positions) Elected position. $600/yr bonus to be paid quarterly upon successful completion of duties.

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

Graduate Talk Series Representatives

(2 positions) Elected position. $100 bonus to be paid at the end of winter upon successful completion of GTSlam duties and $50 per GTS talk hosted (or $25 per GTS talk co-hosted).

Summary of Duties: To coordinate GTSlam and other ad hoc graduate talk events throughout the year.

Duties Include: 

• Coordinate winter GTSlam:
  • Gather contestants and judges (this may need to start in the Fall quarter)
  • Talk to judges about the scoring sheet (with written feedback) and make sure they agree with it before the events
  • Coordinate receptions for each GTSlam events (ordering food, setting up, and cleaning afterward)
  • Advertise (send out emails and make/post posters) the events
• Survey grads yearly and coordinate graduate talk events, as requested, throughout the year
  • In order for a talk to count as a graduate talk, it must:
    • Increase public speaking opportunities for our grads
    • Increase grad awareness of the variety of research going on in the department
    • Build grad community
    • Provide an opportunity to speak about one’s work broadly (i.e., beyond just the research area)
    • Be practice for job talks, dissertation defense, conference presentations, etc. (with sufficient time for feedback to be incorporated into talk, minimum 1 week before scheduled event)
    • Other talk types including educational or training material that benefits graduate student research activities (e.g., technical tutorials or other research skills) can also count as graduate talks. Must be discussed with and approved by Graduate Coordinator.

Outreach Officers

(2 positions) Appointed by application to the Graduate Coordinator. $600 per person/yr paid quarterly upon successful completion of duties.

Duties Include: 

• Coordinate on campus visits/lab tours with the Student Affairs Manager including Psychology Day: A campus visit with lab tours and a presentation delivered by one of our own professors
• Provide presentations on the labs and types of research in our department 
• Provide presentations on a specific area of research (e.g., Cognitive, Developmental, Social, Cognitive/Behavioral Neuroscience)
• Presentation on what it’s like to be a PhD student, potential careers, and more details about our PhD program (Pathways to PhD)
• Host a minimum of six workshops/presentations each academic year (annually) 
• Organize graduate and undergraduate volunteers
• Build relationships with high school teachers
• Contact local schools to set up outreach events

Outreach Representatives

(6 positions) Elected position. $50 per outreach event.

Summary of Duties: To provide presentations to local classrooms in order to increase awareness and interest in pursuing a graduate degree in Psychology, especially for students from low socioeconomic and under-represented minority communities.

Duties include one of the following: 

• Providing a ~1 hr presentation on: 
  • The different types of research and labs in our department
  • A specific area of research (e.g., Cognitive, Developmental, Social, Cognitive/Behavioral Neuroscience)
  • On what it’s like to be a PhD student, potential careers, and more details about our PhD program
• Receiving & implementing feedback from teachers, students, and outreach officers, including a training on presentations for non-academic audiences

Senior TA

(1 position) Elected position. $1,700/yr 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: To be a source of information to the graduate community and to aid in any TA issues.

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),
• Coordinate Mentor TAs (provide training on assisting their mentees on their lecture and providing feedback on the lecture) 
• May be required as Mentor TA for 1st time TAs when no mentor TA is available (if this occurs, additional compensation of $25 per student will apply)
• Organize practice talks for first year students
• Handle TA conflicts (or forward to appropriate person)
• Senior TA also handles duties in summer following year of assignment

Statistics Advisor

(1 position) Position sometimes paired with PSYC 201AB TA, others may apply to Graduate Coordinator. $1,700/yr bonus paid quarterly upon successful completion of duties.

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. This will include teaching interested students how to perform simple statistical analyses (e.g. t-tests, ANOVAs, regression) using a statistical package (e.g. SPSS, JMP, etc.),
• Provide guidance on the types of statistical analyses available to solve more advanced problems
• Answer questions relating to best-practice experimental design.
• Expect to spend a minimum of 10 hours per quarter on open office hours and/or individual appointments (not including time spent preparing for these meetings or responding to emails).

Web Developer

(1 position) Appointed by application to the Graduate Coordinator. $1,200/yr 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
• Implement new features to make the Psychology Department website more dynamic
• Format and post news stories and events to front page and events page
• Provide website committee with quarterly/annual report on website traffic analytics and make recommendations to website design based on those analytics
• Must know or be willing to learn:
  • HTML/CSS basics to be able to utilize more functions within the CMS.
  • website structures
  • Google Analytics
  • modern UX practices
• 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).