Lab Handbook
Welcome! We’re so happy you’re here. If you are reading this, you belong here! We created this handbook to help you get up to speed on what we’re all about.
The lab is you
While you’re here, everything you make and do, every word you write, and every interaction you have is representing the lab. When you send an email to a participant, you are the lab. When you share your knowledge with another lab on campus, you are the lab. The lab is you. When participants and colleagues think of our lab, they’ll think of you and the impression you made on them. Knowing this, we hope you will take the time to do a good job, to consider whether the things you say are true and kind, and to enjoy yourself.
Our values
- We value being happy, healthy, and well-rounded people. We hope you’ll work hard and enjoy your job, but nothing is more important than your health and wellbeing.
- We value doing good science that makes a meaningful contribution.
- We value being generous with our time and resources. We’re happy to share what we’ve learned with others.
- We value simplicity.
- We value the content you produce, not the tool you used to produce it.
- We value you as the intelligent and hard-working person you are.
Who does what?
- PI: Katie Schuler is our lab’s Principal Investigator. You can call her Katie. She’s responsible for setting the overall direction of the lab and obtaining the funding to keep us running. She decides what research projects the lab should work on, oversees those projects, and manages the resources that support them (staff, finances, etc.).
- Postdocs: Postdocs are recent PhD grads who are interested in acquiring additional skills before moving on to faculty (or industry!) positions. They are mentored by Katie (often co-mentored by other faculty) and work on mostly independent research projects.
- Grad students: Grad students are working toward PhDs in Linguistics, Psychology, or Computer Science. They are mentored by Katie (sometimes co-mentored by other faculty) and work on research projects in collaboration with Katie.
- Lab manager: Lab managers are usually recent college grads interested in gaining more hands-on lab experience before moving on to graduate school. The lab manager manages all day-to-day operations in the lab. If you are a grad student or postdoc, the lab manager is a resource to help you conduct your research. If you are a research assistant, the lab manager is your boss!
- Research assistants: Research assistants are undergrads or postbacs working in the lab to gain research experience. Research assistants work part-time in a supporting role, helping the lab recruit research participants, run experiments, and keep our records updated. They report to the lab manager.
Where we work
- In the lab: Research assistants work in person in the lab unless they have special permission to work remotely from Katie (very rare). Everyone is required to work in the lab when running participants (in person or on zoom).
- Remotely: Graduate students and postdocs can work remotely ocasionally (no persmission required), as long as they are being productive and engaging with the lab on Slack.
What we share
- Resources: We love to share what we’ve learned with others.
- Space: We share lab space with the Cultural Evolution of Language Lab. We have a lot in common, science-wise, and we really enjoy being roommates!
- Science: We think open science is a great idea, so we share data, study materials, and code whenever possible.
Code of conduct
The Principles of Responsible Conduct are the basic expectations the University of Pennsylvania sets for its students and employees. Make sure you read them so you understand what is expected of you. Beyond that, we want the lab to be a safe, open, and welcoming environment for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
- Things like this contribute to a positive environment: Using welcoming and inclusive language, being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences, gracefully accepting constructive criticism, and showing empathy towards other lab members
- Things like this are not tolerated in the lab: Using sexualized language or imagery, unwelcome sexual attention or advances, insulting/derogatory comments, personal or political attacks, public or private harassment, publishing other’s private information (e.g. email, address, photo) without permission, and any other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting
General lab policies
- Research (mis)conduct: Don’t fabricate, falsify, or plagiarize. Research integrity is very important and we don’t tolerate research misconduct of any kind. Read Penn’s policies regarding misconduct in research very carefully.
- Reproducible research: Reproducible research is an essential part of science and an expectation for all projects in the lab. For results to be reproducible, all aspects of our research projects must be organized and well documented. lease refer to lab’s guide in your daily work and take care to follow the procedures.
- Authorship: We follow the APA authorship guidelines in the lab. Project leads can expect to be authors. Research assistants are normally not authors.
- Human subjects research: Please take care to follow our IRB protocols and protect our human subject.
- Photo and video policy: Don’t take or post a picture/video of someone without their consent. Never take pictures or videos of research participants; we don’t have IRB approval for that. We only capture audio and screen recordings during research studies.
- Noise policy: If you want to have loud conversations, find a place outside the shared lab workspace. Participant running rooms for our lab and the Cultural Evolution of Language Lab are right next door: being too loud could disrupt data collection in both labs.
- Dress code: The dress code is casual, but not too casual. When interacting with participants or presenting your work, don’t wear pajamas or workout clothes, but jeans are fine.
Our events and routines
The lab has a few routines that allow us to set goals, review our progress, and celebrate our achievements.
- Round table meeting: Each week, lab members meet to talk about how the past week went, get help and feedback, and set goals for the next week.
- Lab meeting: Each week, we have a joint lab meeting with the Language and Cognition lab (Dr. Anna Papafragou). Usually a lab member presents on in-progress research, but sometimes we prepare for conference submissions or invite outside speakers.
- We (which means YOU) are also invited to attend several other relevant events around Penn. See our lab calendar for other seminars and talk series that might be interesting to you: ILST seminar, mindCORE seminar, Psych Colloquim, Linguistic speaker series, and more.
Helpful people
Please CC Katie when you are reaching out for outside help from any of our friends below
- Amy Forsyth (Program Coordinator for Linguistics): Amy makes sure the department runs smoothly. If you need anything from keys, to equipment, to reserving space she is probably the person to go to. Amy is located in the Linguistics Department room 304-CB and her email is aforsyth@ling.upenn.edu.
- Malik Blassingale (Local Service Provider): Malik is the LSP (computer guru) for the Linguistics Department. He’s the person to contact to solve all of your computing and networking problems (including relocating computers: he has the keys!). His office is located in FBH 232 and he can be reached at linguistics-help@sas.upenn.edu.
- James Trumbo (Building Manager): James is the facilities manager for our building. He’s the person to contact if there is a leak, or trash isn’t being emptied, or something about the physical space needs attention (this includes hanging things on walls). His email is jtrumbo@sas.upenn.edu.
- Janice Brochetti (Business Administrator): Janice is the business administrator for our department. She manages anything to with finance, including grant management or hiring people. You will email her most often when preparing things for grants and hiring new RAs. Her email is janbro@sas.upenn.edu.
Gratitude
This handbook was inspired by many others, especially the Aly Lab and the Contributor Covenant. Thanks to these groups for making and sharing these resources.