Interviewer and Editor: Selena Perez In this article, Selena Perez interviews Kayleigh Morrissey. Morrissey is a fourth-year English student at UCLA currently conducting a senior thesis. In this interview, she delves into the unique topic of Morrissey’s research, covering everything from the research process to the social implication of producing an analysis of parasocial relationships. Selena: Could you tell me about the subject of your senior thesis, and what initially drew you to this topic? Kayleigh: Yes! I’m writing about the complexity and the neutrality of Taylor Swift’s star image. Normally, complexity and neutrality wouldn’t be seen as interrelated, but I’m arguing that they are, in the case of Taylor…

Interviewer and Editor: Selena Perez In this article, Selena Perez interviews Alejandra Lopez (Lab Manager) and Sydney Kong (Research Assistant) from Dr. Tomiyama’s DiSH Lab. The DiSH Lab conducts research aimed toward understanding the relationship between food and psychology. In this interview, she examines the experience of working at a UCLA research laboratory, including how valuable and at times, challenging the opportunity can be. Selena: Alejandra, could you explain what some of your duties are as a lab manager, as well as how holding this position has been a valuable experience for you as a scholar? Alejandra: Yeah, so some of my duties include grant budgeting (making sure we have…

Interviewers and Editors: Jennifer Chanto, Connie Chen, Selena Yu, Klaus Gomez Stimeder What is your area of research? In this article, we interview Vivian Byeon. As a second-year Ph.D. student in Clinical Psychology at UCLA, Byeon talks about her experiences in research and gives words of wisdom to students pursuing graduate school. I’m interested in organizational factors that impact the adoption and sustainment of evidence-based therapeutic strategies in community mental health settings.  How did you become interested in this topic? As an undergrad, I became involved in research during my senior year of college. I worked at a substance use lab here at UCLA, and that made me really interested…

Author: Leika Keys Editor: Eva Li My Research Proposal Abstract My name is Leika Keys and I am a fourth-year political science major at UCLA and the outreach coordinator here at Aleph. As the sun sets on my senior year, my long-waited and planned existential crisis can finally emerge out of its nest. In response, I have frantically been searching for a grad program to throw myself in. Somewhere along the way, I found myself writing research proposals to universities in the U.K. and Japan, hoping to continue my educational career. Maybe, you find yourself in the same position as me—desperately trying to figure out your next step before you…

In this article, Ishani Desai interviews Sara Wilf. Wilf is in her second year of the Social Welfare PhD program at UCLA’s Luskin School of Social Welfare. In this interview, they cover Wilf’s path to her current research and tips for undergraduate researchers on campus. Ishani: On your CV, I saw you worked in India! What inspired you to travel there and what kind of work were you involved in?  Sara: I traveled to India right after I received a B.A. in Comparative Literature from Brown University. I knew I wanted to do nonprofit work internationally— India was a good option because it had a lot of nonprofits that inspired…