Undergraduate Research Opportunities
NYUAD students interested in gaining hands-on research experience may be able to get involved in one of the lab projects as volunteer research assistants. We sometimes have paid research positions through the NYUAD student assistantship program. Please get in touch at nyuad.SRBL@nyu.edu.
Capstone Student Research
NYUAD students interested in gender stereotyping, bias, and discrimination or related topics who are looking for a faculty advisor for their Capstone project are encouraged to get in touch with us as early as possible at nyuad.SRBL@nyu.edu. Prospective Capstone researchers in our lab benefit greatly from getting involved in the lab's research one or two semesters before the beginning of capstone.
PROSPECTIVE PHD STUDENTS
We will be reviewing PhD applicants in Fall 2024 (for students looking to start their PhD in Fall 2025) through the NYU Global PhD Fellowship in Psychology, offered in collaboration with the NYU Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS).
We are especially looking for students with interests in the social psychology of gender, stereotyping and prejudice, leadership (status/power/hierarchy), and workplace culture. If you are interested in applying to join the Social Roles & Beliefs Lab as a PhD student, you can get a very good sense of what we are currently working on by browsing this website or checking Dr. Vial's Google Scholar profile.
For equity reasons, Dr. Vial does not engage in extensive contact with prospective PhD students in the pre-application stage.
PhD students admitted through the NYU Global PhD Fellowship in Psychology complete two years of coursework at NYU in New York followed by three years of research at NYU Abu Dhabi. If selected, the PhD program is fully funded.
Potential candidates apply using the standard NYU GSAS online application. There is no separate application for the NYU Abu Dhabi Global PhD Student Fellowship. You can learn more about the program and the application process here, here, here, and here. Applicants should also indicate a prospective PhD advisor within the Social Psychology PhD program at NYU in New York.
Advice on applying
In your application, be sure to specifically note which faculty members
you'd like to work with and why (both at NYU-NY and NYU Abu Dhabi). Many successful candidates mention 2 or 3 faculty and say why specifically they are
interested in each faculty member's research.
Your "statement of academic purpose" should focus on the big ideas and questions that bring you to graduate school. These could be very different from
the questions you have researched so far. This essay is where you can talk
about which faculty you'd like to work with on these questions, and why they would be a good fit with your research interests. You can let your personality shine through as you write this essay. But the statement of academic purpose really should focus on intellectual and research topics about which you feel passionate.
Your "personal history statement" is a chance to tell the fuller story of your resume--what your research and intellectual background has been like so far. What kinds of research and intellectual experiences have you had? What did you learn and what did that motivate you to learn next? You can also use the personal history statement as a place to mention that you've faced some challenging life circumstances, so we can get a fuller appreciation of you as a candidate. There is no one type of person or background that we're looking for. So please do mention information about yourself that you think we should know.
For additional advice on applying to PhD programs, see this article.
Keep in mind that, for equity reasons, Dr. Vial does not engage in extensive contact with prospective PhD students in the pre-application stage. However, if you have any questions about the application process that cannot be answered by browsing the links above, please get in touch at nyuad.SRBL@nyu.edu.