Join us!

Dr. Jara-Ettinger will not be accepting new graduate students as primary advisor for the 2027 admissions cycle (students starting in Fall 2027), but is available as a co-advisor.

We often looking for motivated undergraduates that are interested in developmental or computational research. Research assistants will have the opportunity to be involved in all aspects of the research process, including recruiting participants, running experiments, collecting and entering data, analyzing data, and presenting results.
Undergraduates in our lab usually join one of three efforts: Helping develop computational models, running experiments with adults, or working with children to understand the origins of social intelligence. Each of these require different skillsets. If you're interested, please send an email to our lab manager, Alina Dau, at alina.dau@yale.edu. Attach your CV, and explain which of the areas you'd be most interested in (you can mention several). For developmental research, you must be available for blocks of time during the weekday or weekend to help collect data, and comfortable interacting with children 4-10 years of age.
You can join the lab for the Spring semester (January-May), Summer (June-August), or Fall (September-December). We require a minimum commitment of six hours/week, and we prioritize undergraduates who can commit for at least two semesters of research. You'll be working on trying to solve new problems and it takes some time to get you set up!

Thesis advising. Our lab often advises undergraduate students on their thesis. The kind of research we do takes time, so we generally require undergraduate students to have completed at least one semester of research in the lab before their senior year. One year is just not enough to complete a thesis in the kind of work that we do unless you've already gotten the basics down! If you're interested in this, please reach out to the lab mentor you've worked with.

Undergraduate students who are not at Yale can come spend the summer working in our lab. You can join the lab through Yale's SURF program, or Yale's ESI-PREP postbac program. We also often have internal funds for hosting summer students. All of these programs include funding during your stay. Please contact Alina Dau (alina.dau@yale.edu) first if you are interested in these opportunities.