Post-Bac Research Positions

The Language Learning Lab has two full-time post-Bac research positions, a lab manager and a lab coordinator/tech. These positions are an opportunity to expand on previous research experience and conduct research full-time to clarify research interests and become a more competitive candidate for graduate school or the job market.

We are currently accepting applications for the lab coordinator/tech position. See job ad here for specific duties.

Learning Opportunities:

  • Conferences: Opportunities to attend conferences--both domestic and international--on cognitive science, language, or other related fields. Past examples include AMLaP, CogSci, and BUCLD.
  • Language and Cognition: Weekly talk series hosted by the Language Development Lab at Harvard providing the opportunity to hear about research and network with people from other labs around Boston (e.g. MIT, UMass Boston, Tufts, and BU). Recently, Gregory Scott from UC Irvine gave a talk on the role of subjectivity in adjective ordering preferences.
  • Lab and Department Meetings: Bi-weekly lab meetings with outside researchers or discussing relevant papers, Department Colloquium and Developmental Workshops with researchers from other universities and disciplines.
  • Courses: Option to take any BC course free of charge. Courses taken by previous post-bacs have included Multivariate Calculus and Probability.
  • Boston: Boston is arguably the academic center of the world. With so many neighboring universities, post-Bac researchers have the opportunity to collaborate with several other labs. Recent post-bacs have worked on collaborations with two different labs at Harvard.

Work Opportunities:

  • Flexibility: Post-Bac researchers work on varied projects and can choose to focus on projects that are most aligned with their research interests. For example, a recent post-Bac researcher explored her growing interest in data science by creating a Shiny app to parse Verb Net and used her Spanish to start a study for Spanish-speaking children.
  • Interdisciplinary research: The research at L3 spans psychology, computer science, linguistics, and mathematics. Research opportunities include developmental studies, linguistic theory, machine learning, Bayesian statistics and large-scale Internet studies. For example, a post-Bac researcher who had previously focused on developmental studies had the opportunity to learn programming and more advanced statistics to enhance her research skills.
  • Leadership: Post-Bac researchers hire, manage, and mentor undergraduate research assistants. Through this leadership, post-Bac researchers acquire interviewing, motivational, and organizational skills userful for their future careers.
  • Publications and Conference Posters: Post-Bac researchers are involved in publications and have the opportunity to present posters at academic conferences. For example, a post-Bac researcher contributed to the LAAD and Many Labs 5 papers.
  • Teaching Experience: Post-Bac researchers attend and act as a Teaching Assistant in courses taught by the PI. In the past, post-Bac researchers have had active teaching and mentoring roles in Dr. Hartshorne's Language Acquisition course.

Career Opportunities:

  • Transferable skills: Post-Bac researchers learn programming, management, and data analysis skills, which transfer across different research disciplines and career paths.
  • Academic Career: This position sets up post-Bac researchers for an academic career through high-level research experience and networking opportunities.
  • Non-academic careers: This position has also benefited post-bacs who ultimately go into non-academic careers. The PI is committed to supporting lab members in their next professional step, whether it is in academia or elsewhere.