Research Assistant | Department of Psychology, University of West Florida
Faculty P.I.: Dr. Chelsea Greer, Ph.D.
Summer 2026–Present

Project Overview

This study examines how individuals respond when an the group with which they identify, or their ingroup, is itself the source of an offense. Previous research on interpersonal forgiveness has primarily examined offenses committed by individuals or by members of an out-group. This project extends that work by considering whether and how people respond when their own identified group engages in harmful or objectionable behavior.

Participants are presented with hypothetical scenarios involving offenses committed by their ingroup, including misuse of group resources, ostracism of a group member, and changes in group beliefs or values. Participants report their emotional and motivational responses to these scenarios, including reactions such as anger, avoidance, disgust, shame, and revenge, as well as their willingness to forgive or remain unforgiving toward the group.

The study examines whether responses to ingroup offenses vary according to the type of offense, strength of group identification, emotional reactions, religious commitment, and political affiliation. More broadly, the project investigates how group membership and social identification shape responses to conflict and wrongdoing within one’s own social groups.

My Role

• Conduct literature reviews examining research on offense, forgiveness, group membership, and social identification
• Assisted with the preparation and revision of Institutional Review Board (IRB) materials
• Collaborated with faculty on the development of study measures and survey procedures
• Designed IRB-approved participant recruitment materials
• Assisted with the development and implementation of the study in Qualtrics

Research Areas

Group Processes · Social Identification · Ingroup Behavior · Forgiveness · Emotional Responses · Social Psychology

Project Manager | Departments of Linguistics & Psychiatry, University of Florida
Faculty P.I.: Dr. Sarah Moeller, Ph.D.
Spring 2024–Spring 2025

Project Overview

This interdisciplinary project investigated whether linguistic features of speech can distinguish individuals with Hoarding Disorder from individuals without the disorder. The broader goal was to identify language patterns that could potentially contribute to earlier identification and assessment of psychological disorders.

The project involved qualitative annotation of transcribed clinical interviews, with researchers examining patterns in language and speech that may distinguish individuals with Hoarding Disorder from comparison participants. The resulting annotated data may also contribute to the development of machine-learning and natural language processing approaches for identifying clinically relevant linguistic patterns.

My Role

As Project Manager, I coordinated the day-to-day research workflow and supported the development and implementation of the project’s qualitative annotation procedures. My responsibilities included:

• Supervised and trained undergraduate research assistants in qualitative linguistic annotation procedures
• Led weekly research meetings and coordinated project workflows
• Conducted preliminary qualitative analysis of transcribed clinical interviews
• Collaborated with interdisciplinary faculty across linguistics and psychiatry
• Contributed to discussions of study design, annotation procedures, and interpretation of linguistic findings
• Helped ensure consistency and organization across the research team’s annotation process

Research Areas

Clinical Psychology · Psycholinguistics · Mental Health · Qualitative Research · Natural Language Processing · Interdisciplinary Research

Research Assistant | Department of Linguistics, University of Florida
Faculty P.I.: Dr. Edith Kaan, Ph.D.
Spring 2024–Spring 2025

Project Overview

This interdisciplinary research examined whether different types of Spanish-English code-switching engage cognitive control processes differently. Code-switching, the use of two languages within a single sentence, has been proposed to engage cognitive processes involved in inhibition, conflict monitoring, and attentional control.

Across four experiments, early Spanish-English bilingual participants encountered Spanish sentences that were either unilingual or included different types of switches to English. Participants then completed a Flanker task, allowing researchers to examine whether processing a code switch influenced subsequent performance on a measure of cognitive control.

Across experiments, the findings provided no evidence that processing code-switched sentences enhanced cognitive control. In several experiments, participants demonstrated a larger Flanker conflict effect following code-switched sentences. The findings suggest that unexpected or pragmatically unusual code switches may draw attention and cognitive resources away from subsequent conflict processing rather than strengthening cognitive control.

My Role

• Assisted with multidisciplinary research examining the relationship between bilingual language processing and cognitive control
• Administered Spanish and English verbal fluency tasks
• Prepared participants for electroencephalography (EEG) procedures
• Recorded and managed neural data using EEGLAB
• Assisted with experimental procedures involving bilingual participants and cognitive control tasks

Research Areas

Cognitive Neuroscience · Psycholinguistics · Bilingualism · Cognitive Control · EEG/ERP · Experimental Psychology