Abigail R
- Research Program Mentor

MA candidate at New York University

Expertise

psychology (developmental, gender and sexuality, applied psychology), cognitive science, LGBTQ, activism, education and schools, mental health

Bio

My name is Abby Richburg (she/they pronouns). I am a developmental psychology researcher focused on adolescent well-being, specifically among LGBTQ+ youth. I currently work with high school students in Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) clubs in New York City. While my personal area of interest is within developmental psychology, I have the necessary background and training to mentor students in different areas of psychology (e.g., social/clinical), cognitive science, neuroscience, and so on. Tell me your interests and we'll start from there!

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Write a scientific literature review

Why are we the way that we are? Why do we do what we do? Psychology research is here to answer all your burning questions about human behavior. Gathering all of the background knowledge on a topic is a critical skill for any research project, so let's work together to help you build skills that you can apply to ANY research question. We'll learn how to find papers, how to read a scientific journal article, and how to write a literature review summarizing what we know about a certain topic. If you don't have a burning question in mind, here are some examples for where to start: How can high schools help support LGBTQ students? How has COVID-19 affected high school student learning and mental health? Does the SAT/ACT do a good job of predicting college success?

Let's get creative: blog post, podcast, infographic...

Who ever said academia is boring? Let's get your creativity flowing and work toward a final product that makes scientific knowledge fun. This could be a blog post, podcast, infographic, personal memoir, YouTube video, or so on! Based on your specific research question, we'll start by gathering the information you need (through a survey, interviews, reading existing research on the topic, and so on). We'll then work together to present that information in a creative format.