Are you interested in potentially joining the Suicide & Trauma Research Collaborative (STRC)?

Being part of a formalized research lab has a number of benefits for students, especially for those who are seeking to pursue research as part of their career or future graduate school plans. For those are who are wanting to attend a PhD program, a significant amount of research (with multiple presentations, and hopefully a publication or two) is considered absolutely necessary to be competitive in your applications. Further, participation in a research organization like STRC will assist you in building life-long friendships and colleagues, which definitely can inform future career and professional options.

We are always looking research assistants (undergraduate and graduate students) and associates (experienced post baccs and graduate students, community partners) who are interested in helping to change the lives of those affected by trauma, while conducting (learning how to conduct) rigorous, scientific research.

For the Spring 2026 semester, we are primarily focused on recruiting college Sophomores and Juniors (with graduation dates of Spring 2028 or later). This requirement of having at least two academic years until graduation is a combination of two primary reasons: first, many of our studies are longitudinal in nature, and it is difficult in a single year with our lab to get good, varied experiences from beginning to end… and second, because phd program applications are primarily in October through December, anyone joining us in August will simply be unable to get anything meaningful done in that time (most of the research conference are not until February through April, long after grad school applications have been turned in). Thus, we will only generally accept college seniors to work in our lab who are planning to take a gap year while continuing to work with STRC as a post bacc/alumni.

We also ask for a commitment to the lab of approximately 5-10 hours per week. Some weeks that may end up being 0, while every once in a while it may end up being 20 (for instance, maybe the week before a conference or at the conference). For the most part, that time is flexible, but we do hold our weekly meetings on Wednesday from 4:00pm to 5:15pm MST (consistent attendance is mandatory, in-person). Nobody is having you clock in and out, but as a team science oriented research organization, we are often waiting on each other to complete our parts.

Finally, we do expect that students working with STRC will be active in applying to, attending, and presenting at research conferences; while funding is often available to help offset the costs of the attendance and registration, students should plan on some financial costs out of pocket. This attendance to disseminate our work is a vital component of medical and psychological research, and is in the student’s best interest to populate their curriculum vitaes (CVs) so as to be more competitive for graduate school applications.

IF you haven’t been scared off by the above, and are still interested, please contact us via email at strc@uvu.edu, and include the following items:

1) A paragraph or more introduction in your email as to who you are and what your goals are.

2) A paragraph or so about why you are interested in joining STRC and how you believe that you can benefit us and we can benefit you.

3) A copy of your unofficial college transcripts

4) A copy of your CV; if you don’t have a CV, a copy of your resume. And start building a CV 🙂

5) Two writing samples; at least one from a psychology class if possible, in APA format.

We love what we do, and we are sure that you will love it too… So we look forward to hearing from you! Semper Fidelis!