Author: Anne Yilmaz

Presenting: APS Annual Convention (Virtual)

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

Tomorrow is the first day of APS Virtual! I’ll be presenting the poster, “Enhancing Evidence of Innocence from Police Lineups,” which you can find here. You will need to login to APS in order to access it. 

Additionally, I’ll be leading a Hot Topic Discussion on Memory in Forensics. I’m excited to see what ideas other APS members bring to the 30-minute discussion on the state of the field, where it’s going, and what questions we hope to be answered in the future. On a personal note, it’s super cool seeing my name listed as a speaker and being able to engage with other attendees in a live-session. This is my first time engaging with the APS research community in a manner other than a poster.

Presenting: CARTA Student Symposium

CARTA, UC San Diego

Every year, the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA) hosts a student symposium. It’s a chance for students, faculty, outside researchers, and funders to get a glimpse into the research and interests of students within the anthropogeny Ph.D specialization track. As a CARTA Fellowship recipient (thank you funders!), I also use this time to update generous donors about the state of my research.

If you’d like to view my five-minute talk called “Memory” or the talks of my colleagues, you can do so here. (This link will eventually become private by the organization. Please contact me if you do not have access and would like to view the talk.)

Resources: Pathways to Ph.D panel

Psychology, Resources, UC San Diego

During UCSD’s Pathways to Ph.D event, some of the panelists shared resources which helped them navigate the graduate school application process.

  • UCSD’s Psychology Department has an “Applying to Graduate Programs” webpage. This webpage contains information on: how much time to set aside for applications, when to consider applying to graduate school, additional links / resources / downloadable forms, and information about choosing programs / advisers / schools and making one’s application competitive. This webpage is tailored to people interested in research programs in psychology, but much of it can be applied to other disciplines.
  • UCSD’s Career Center has a “Get into Grad School” page. They provide important academic resources as well as questions you should ask yourself before choosing a program.
  • Colors of the Brain is a UCSD-based program promoting diversity within the brain sciences. Their graduate mentors will review academic CVs and applications of undergraduate students looking to enter a graduate STEM field. All of the graduate mentors are first-generation or come from a historically underrepresented background. Also, Colors of the Brain can provide support and resources to students about life in STEM and/or graduate school in general.

Thank you to everyone who attended and to those who made this event possible.

Panelist: “Pathways to Ph.D”

Psychology, UC San Diego

This Wednesday (November 4th, 2020), I’ll be a graduate panelist for the “Pathways to Ph.D” event. This event is for undergraduate students who are hoping to apply to graduate school in Experimental Psychology, Neuroscience, and Clinical Psychology. The panel will discuss life of a graduate student, research, as well as how to approach the application process.

If you would like to attend, here is the form to RSVP!

Panelist: Graduate Student Panel Meet ‘n’ Greet

Psychology, UC San Diego

Yesterday, San Diego Mesa College hosted a UCSD Psychology graduate student meet-and-greet for LatinX Heritage Month. I thought it was a massive success! I think it’s important to continue outreach opportunities with budding/curious/future researchers, especially when they come from groups that are underrepresented in academia.

The students were highly engaged, which made me happy. I think we could have gone an extra hour! The topics we covered were:

  • financing graduate school
  • what skills should be developed before applying
  • classes to take before applying
  • navigating adviser-student dynamics
  • narrowing research interests
  • pursuing research opportunities as an undergrad
  • the pressures of graduate classes
  • the impact of COVID-19 on research productivity and running human participants
  • the common myths surrounding the graduate school experience
  • separating self-worth from productivity and a study’s success
  • mental health

If you are considering graduate programs in psychology, feel free to reach out to me via email (find my info here: contact). People helped me get to where I am. I’m happy to be that person for you too.

-A.Y.

CARTA: Exploring the Human-Ape Paradox

CARTA, UC San Diego

If you’re interested in the comparative anthropogeny or the human-ape paradox, I recommend saving this date! On October 24, 2020, the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA) is hosting a virtual symposium covering humans as a “uniquely evolved, biologically enculturated species” compared to chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans.

I’ll be tuning into the livestream. I hope you do too. Click here to visit the CARTA website for more information.

The Writing Process (Tips)

Resources, UC San Diego

As all of us in academia know, the writing process rarely begins with a blank Word document titled, “rough draft.” It begins with an idea, notes jotted into a notebook, a lot of (annotated) reading, study design, data collection, and a whole host of other steps before the aforementioned Word document even exists. Large-scale writing projects can be daunting, not only because they require a lot of hard work, but because organizing oneself can be challenging.

Before UCSD went fully remote, I attended a graduate writing retreat to make progress on my qualifying paper. The writing retreat, hosted by the Teaching + Learning Commons (TLC), is meant for those with large writing projects (e.g. qualifying papers, dissertations, etc.). It was my first time attending a writing retreat. I expected attendees to spend the entire time quietly working, but the TLC structured the time such that students first learned how to efficiently work. Below is one of the most-helpful handouts that they gave to us.

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UC Psychology Teaching & Learning Conference

Psychology, Resources, UC San Diego

This week was the UC Psychology Teaching & Learning conference, hosted by faculty at UC San Diego, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis and UCLA. From the conference webpage, “[The conference] is designed for psychology instructors at all levels who are interested in developing teaching strategies and learning about pedagogy research.”

This was an informative event and gave attendees numerous tools on how to improve the classroom experience (especially in a virtual setting). Listed below are some of the helpful things I learned over the course of these two days:

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