Work Schedule Type:

On-site (The internship will be performed entirely at the lab)

Student Requirements:

Students must be solely U.S. citizens. (Dual citizens and permanent residents are not eligible.) Students must be turning 18 years old before starting the internship. They must also have a driver’s license and their own transportation to the site.

About the Lab

The Naval Aerospace Medical Institute provides applicant screening for the US Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. This includes pre-acceptance screening for psychological aptitude and post-acceptance screening for physical qualification. Additionally, NAMI is the home of the Robert E. Mitchell Center for Prisoner of War Studies. This is one of the longest standing longitudinal studies in the world. The primary lab seeking interns is the operational psychology lab which owns and operates the aviation selection test battery-seeking primarily Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Data Science, or Computer Science interns. However, other departments within NAMI may be open to qualified applicants on an as needed basis.

What is unique about this lab?

This opportunity is lab research in an applied setting-which is unique. Our participants are job incumbents that help us identify the best methods to select the next generation of Naval aviators. Our lab is unlike any other in the US military. We have a robust collaboration with the Naval Research Laboratory and conduct cutting edge research in the personnel selection domain.

About the Internship

We seek motivated graduate students looking to expand their experience in personnel selection or to contribute to ongoing laboratory research in the personnel selection domain. This includes study design, lab management, data analysis, and preparation of results for presentation and/or publication. Best qualified students are pursuing a master's or doctoral degree in Industrial-Organizational Psychology or Data Science. Graduate students in Computer Science or a related degree with programming experience will also be considered on an as needed basis.

What will I do any given day as an intern at this lab?

Interns participate in lab functions in a number of ways including (but not limited to) assisting mentors with guided research projects, job and project shadowing with professional researchers, and attending technical meetings. There is potential for ongoing collaboration and publication of lab work after the internship has ended; this is also a potential job preview for openings in the lab and/or for commission to the United States Naval Service as an active-duty psychologist.

What majors and disciplines are a good fit for interning at this lab?

• Behavioral Science
• Computer Science
• Management/Leadership
• Medical Science
• Organizational Development
• Social Sciences
• Statistics
• Industrial-Organizational Psychology
• Human Factors Psychology
• Data Science

What will I learn as an intern at this lab?

As part of the internship, you will get hands-on experience supporting Naval projects, experiments, test and engineering evaluations, cybersecurity assessments, STEM activities, and tool development under the guidance of experienced engineering mentors. Expert technical guidance in various technical areas such as Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Electronics, Aerodynamics, Material Science Engineering and much more.

What kinds of projects do interns at this lab participate in?

The following are examples of projects to which interns may be assigned:

Pupillometry study to determine the best method for aviators to measure their own interpupillary distance to inform night vision goggle and head mounted display technology (e.g. virtual and mixed reality headset) use and policy.

Simulator sickness questionnaire study examining self-report of a variety of device sickness symptoms to inform device use policy for training air wings and mitigation strategies for students who experience device sickness.

Psychometric analysis of cognitive and non-cognitive test battery items and predictive validation study using real data from Navy flight training. • Multiple studies using eye tracking hardware and software investigating attention control, vigilance, and task prioritization to inform aviation personnel selection and classification.

Virtual reality orientation and situational awareness study exploring mental models for terrain orientation and navigation.

Study in cooperation with the school of aviation safety exploring physiological data and relation to performance on a vigilance task.

Multiple studies exploring motivation and strategy sharing in high stakes occupational testing including multiple measures of spatial ability and attention control.

Psychometric analysis of insufficient effort responding on cognitive and non-cognitive ability tests used for employee selection and classification.

Study exploring the effects of practice on assessments of process-based skill. This study was in cooperation with George Mason department of Computational and Data Science supporting a student seeking (and earning) a PhD in Computational Social Science.

Study examining the next generation of Air Force aviation (next gen Test of Basic Aviation Skill) and non-aviation (next gen Air Force Officer Qualifying Test) assessments.