Recruiting Graduate Students -- Developing Equitable Minds Lab, University of Illinois
Michael Rizzo
Dear Colleagues,
The Developing Equitable Minds Lab (DEML) directed by Dr. Michael Rizzo at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign is seeking motivated students interested in pursuing their Ph.D. in Developmental Science this upcoming 2023 cycle.
In the DEML lab, students will examine a wide range of topics related to children's social, social-cognitive, and moral development. The primary questions driving the lab center around children’s developing conceptions of fairness, the emergence and development of social biases, and ways to promote the concern for equity and disrupt the formation and expression of social biases during childhood. We also investigate the role of status, theory of mind, and children’s understanding of social structures in these processes.
Students in the DEML lab will use a combination of in-person and online (unmoderated, remote research; see Rhodes, et al., 2021) methods to examine how children develop within and across contexts. For example, how the degree of racial inequality in children’s neighborhoods relates to the development of racial bias (Rizzo et al., in press).
The DEML lab is deeply committed to promoting an equitable, diverse, and inclusive science. This means that we are committed to creating and maintaining a lab culture that draws its strength from a diversity of perspectives and experiences. Students from underrepresented backgrounds are especially encouraged to apply.
The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign is consistently ranked among the top 10 Psychology programs in the country and offers funding for Ph.D. students for up to 6 years. For more information about applying to the Psychology Ph.D. program see: HERE. And for more information about the developmental area within the Psychology department see: HERE.
Interested students can complete a brief interest form (HERE) and feel free to contact me (mtr...@illinois.edu) prior to applying.
Thank you for sharing!
Michael Rizzo
Recent Publications
Rizzo, M. T., Britton, T. C., & Rhodes, M (in press). Developmental origins of anti-Black bias in White US children: Exposure to and beliefs about racial inequality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://osf.io/7s39r
Rizzo, M. T., Green, E. R, Dunham, Y., Bruneau, E., & Rhodes, M (2022). Beliefs about social norms and racial inequalities predict variation in the early development of racial bias. Developmental Science, 25, e13170. http://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13170
Roberts, S. O., & Rizzo, M. T. (2021). The psychology of American racism. American Psychologist, 76, 475-487. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000642
Elenbaas, L., Rizzo, M. T., & Killen, M. (2020). A developmental science perspective on social inequality. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 29, 610-616. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721420964147
Rizzo, M. T., Elenbaas, L., & Vanderbilt, K. E. (2020). Do children distinguish between resource inequalities with individual versus structural origins? Child Development, 91, 439-455. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13181
Rizzo, M. T. & Killen, M. (2020). Children’s evaluations of individually and structurally based inequalities: The role of status. Developmental Psychology, 56, 2223-2235. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001118