Dr. Brittany Cassidy is the recipient of the 2023 Thomas Undergraduate Research Mentor Award for pre-tenured faculty.
Since joining UNCG five years ago, Cassidy has mentored 30 undergraduates in her Social Cognition Lab, which focuses on how people think, interpret, and evaluate each other.
“Participating in research as an undergraduate has enormous benefits,” she says. “I know from firsthand experience that being in a lab and doing research as an undergraduate was the most impactful part of being in college for me, and it affected my entire career trajectory. I would not have been able to reach the position that I am today without the mentors that I had.”
In Cassidy’s time at UNCG, already her mentees have been part of eight conference talks and presentations, and two students are co-authors on manuscripts currently under review. Her area of interest offers students a wide range of opportunities, many unavailable at other universities. Students gain experience in everything from recruiting participants and running behavioral and neuroscience tests to working with the JSNN’s MRI for functional neuroimaging research.
“These are opportunities that don’t happen at every university and a strength of UNCG,” says Cassidy. “Students get to really see what’s going on versus just learning about the methods in the classroom, and that can be really, really eye opening.”
She enjoys seeing students moving out of their comfort zones. “It’s really rich for me to see undergraduates succeed and learn and become much more confident in their abilities, whether it’s writing or speaking, or even just becoming more well versed in the literature.”
A personal favorite memory, she says, is when a student who had never been out of state or on an airplane traveled with her to San Francisco to present at the national conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
Several of Cassidy’s mentees have entered prestigious graduate programs in areas ranging from industrial organizational psychology to social work, to cognitive neuroscience. Others have entered the workforce in research-related positions.
“Even if they don’t become social psychologists, you can see them using the skills that they learned to be successful outside of the lab. It brings them confidence, I think when they’re looking for careers.”
Cassidy says her philosophy is to treat undergraduate researchers like they are on the same level as she is. “It helps undergraduates grow in their confidence to have discussions and take ownership of their research,” she says.
“They really drive the research forward, and it helps me really have a holistic view of being a professor. I like that UNCG is a place where your identities as a researcher and as a teacher and mentor are similarly valued. It’s a place where I’ve been able to grow and learn from a diversity of students, as much as I teach them.”
