Join Our Lab!

For Prospective Undergraduate RAs

The MIND Lab is not currently recruiting undergraduate research assistants, but we may recruit RAs in Winter and/or Spring 2027. We’re looking ahead to motivated students who want hands-on experience in developmental and/or moral psychology. RAs will work with children, assist with data collection and analysis, and contribute to ongoing research. If you’re interested in being considered when recruitment opens, please fill out this form.

Note for prospective RAs who also plan to apply to our lab for graduate study: To ensure that all applicants are evaluated fairly and to avoid any conflict of interest, I do not review graduate applications from students who are concurrently working as RAs in our lab, so please plan your time in the lab accordingly. For instance, if you intend to apply to graduate school during Fall 2026, you should not be working in the lab as an RA that same semester. This does not apply to former RAs — applications from students who worked in the lab in previous semesters will be reviewed as usual.

For Prospective Graduate Students

We’re excited to welcome applications from prospective Master’s and PhD students in Fall 2026 (for a Spring 2027 start)!

If you are interested in joining the lab, please read the materials below and email Dr. Young-eun Lee with a brief description of your background (or your CV) and research interests.

I am interested in working with graduate students who share similar research interests. The research questions I’m interested in include (but are not limited to):

  • When and how do children punish moral transgressions? What motivations underlie their punishment?

  • What messages does punishment communicate to children?

  • How do children evaluate punishment relative to other possible interventions, such as victim compensation?

  • How do children learn from legitimate versus illegitimate authorities' punishment?

  • How do cultural values shape children's learning from punishment?

  • How do children understand legal systems as legitimate sources of justice? How do they develop trust in legal institutions?

  • Learning morality from machines: How do children learn moral messages from robots and generative AI? How do they understand the ethical and legal implications?

To learn more about our completed research, please read our representative papers.

Please also check out the details here and here, and feel free to email Dr. Young-eun Lee if you have any questions.

Note: The MIND Lab primarily studies children in middle childhood. We are not currently conducting research with infants, and our short-term focus is on other age groups.