Minority Student Initiative - Kaitlynn Richardson

Kaitlynn Richardson is a 3rd-year student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She presented her presentation at the APLS Access Path to Psychology and Law Experience Program. Congratulations, Kaitlynn!

Abstract:


I am a third year student in the Department of Biological Sciences and in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I aim to someday obtain an M.D.- Ph.D. with the Ph.D. in social psychology. I began working, and continue to work, in Dr. Bette Bottoms’ Laboratory of Psychology and Law. I have been assisting in the completion of research aimed at understanding how jurors come to decisions in cases of child abuse where the child may be either victim or perpetrator; understanding how jurors come to their decisions in cases of child abuse and animal abuse. For both of these cases, we studied factors that influence jury verdicts; such as, race, gender identity, and how masculine and/ or feminine one views oneself to be. The roles that I played in this research overall are brainstorming hypotheses, entering and checking data, reviewing documents to be submitted to the Institutional Review Board (IRB), and doing literature reviews.
During the Spring 2017 semester, I was accepted into the APLS Access Path to Psychology and Law Experience Program. This program seeks to put people who are from underrepresented communities in positions to become competitive graduate school applicants. In addition to the financial support that this program provides, students within this program become involved and gain (further) exposure to research.