Dr. Daniele (Dan) Nardi
<b>Department: </b>Psychological Science<br><b>Research Area: </b>Human perception, memory, and behavior in spatial tasks<br>
Department: Psychological Science
Research Focus: My research focus is on human perception, memory, and behavior in spatial tasks. I specifically study spatial navigation, and my niche is in blind navigation. How do people remember a location without vision, using auditory or proprioceptive cues? I have researched this in more than 15 years. I have currently 28 peer reviewed journal articles, and my research program has been supported by 1 external grant and several internal grants. Eleven of my publications include my students as co-authors, and 17 of my peer-reviewed conference presentations include my students as coauthors. I have also sponsored multiple presentations at student conference. I am linking HERE my profile in my Department webpage. You will be able to find my CV showing my extensive track record of involving students in my research program.
Potential Student Project(s): Currently I am running a study on distance perception. The purpose is to understand the factors that influence judging how close or far objects are. This study is a perfect opportunity for involving students in psychological research because it does not require specialized skills (as long as they have some background in research methods, I can train them). The project will give them a chance to acquire experience in behavioral observation, data collection in person, and data analysis with an impactful project that is easily relatable to everyday life (estimating distances in the environment is highly relevant to everyone).
Attributes/skills/background sought in undergraduate: The only required skills/background is for the student to have taken a Research Methods course in Psychology (e.g., PSYS 284) or related field and to have completed the CITI training for Social and Behavioral Research. I will train them for the more specific skills required (e.g., behavioral observation, data storage, data collection, data analysis, etc.).
Mentoring Plan: The student will have the option to participate in this research project as part of the Teacher-Scholar Program in Fall 2022 or Spring 2023. They will work 5 hours per week on the project including one hour of a weekly meeting with me. Students may continue to work in my lab beyond the semester of the Teacher-Scholar program.
The student will meet with me – together with the rest of my lab – on a regular basis once a week in person. Initially, the student will be assigned readings to familiarize with the project content and procedure. They will be expected to read the assigned readings and discuss them (and discuss potential problems). Then, the student will be trained on the procedure of the study.
Once they are comfortable running the study on their own, they will be leading the study and collecting data with only minimal supervision from me. Weekly meetings will be held to check in and discuss the progress of the study and potential problems.
This mentoring plan is based on similar projects where I was able to let the students lead the study. I learned that, after appropriate training, being in charge of a project helps the student acquire more leadership and problem-solving skills. I have never incurred in any adverse experiences.
Contact: 765-285-1693, NQ 128