image of LAURA student and Professor Steve Windisch standing informs of a backdrop

The College of Liberal Arts’ student body is driven by curiosity and questioning. We encourage all our students to participate in research and help create knowledge. The College of Liberal Arts offers funding opportunities each semester, including summer, to afford students to undertake critical and impactful work. Our Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Awards (LAURAs) are College funded awards with bi-annual calls for proposals.

The Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Awards (LAURAs). The LAURAs grant $2,000 each to undergraduate student-faculty member duos to conduct a research project over the course of a semester. Each student earns a $15/hour stipend from the grant while spending 100 hours on the project, which enables students to dedicate their time to developing research skills without having to worry about their financial wellbeing.

The Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Awards (LAURA) creates more opportunities for undergraduate students to develop research skills by working with faculty mentors on faculty-led research projects while increasing support for faculty research in the College of Liberal Arts.

LAURA Scholars Awards Ceremony

LAURA Scholars Teams Share Experiences

Student-faculty teams worked together over the course of a semester or summer on a research project of mutual interest. Visit our LAURA Scholars Testimonials page and watch the videos to see some of the experiences from our faculty and students!

Faculty and Student Research Teams

The College of Liberal Arts is pleased to announce the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 LAURA Scholar Awards:

Summer 2023

James D. Bachmeier (Sociology) and student Amira Solomon for Childhood School Contexts and the Integration of the Children of Immigrants in 20th Century America
Lisa A. Briand (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Bridget Armstrong for Effect of adolescent social isolation on brain immune cell expression and function
Jason Chein (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Alex Barone for ChatGPT/AI Belief: Can AI create Human-like responses?
Elise Chor (Political Science) and student Stephen Pelliccia for Literacy-Rich Neighborhoods in Philadelphia
Nyron N. Crawford (Political Science) and student James L. Gray for Strike from the Record: Administrative Burden in Expungement of Criminal Records
Tania Giovannetti (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Riya Chaturvedi for Assessment of Everyday Function in Older Adults
Cristina Gragnani (French, German, Italian and Slavic) and student Makayla Anja Montarti for Gender Violence, Loathing, and Self-Affirmation Through Narration: Anna Franchi’s Avanti il Divorzio (1902)
Donald A. Hantula (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Julia Zortea for Human Robot Interaction
Philip C. Kendall (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Elizabeth (Lizzie) Rawa for Therapist ratings of in-session behavior and treatment outcomes for youth with anxiety disorders
Rita Krueger (History) and student Elizabeth Allendoerfer for Exploring the Sounds of War
Natalie M. Léger (English) and student Emme Goldman for “Unimaginable Solidarities: Black and Indigenous Resistance in Film”
Judith A. Levine (Sociology) and student Juliya Medyukh for Landing a Job: Moving from College to Employment in the New Economy
Laura McGrath (English) and student Abigail Corcelli for The Literary Agent and American Literature
Nora Newcombe (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Camille Strand for Individual Differences in Integrating Spatial Relationships Across Separately Learned Routes
Hamil Pearsall (Geography and Urban Studies) and student Karishma Medatia for Evaluation of Prescribe Outside program
Victor M. Pueyo Zoco (Spanish and Portuguese) and student Meira Galapo for The Literature of the Commons. Reading the Early Modern Spanish Canon Otherwise (1450-1700)
Leslie A. Reeder-Myers (Anthropology) and student Olivia Bove for The Thones Kunders Site: An Archaeological History of Germantown
Eileen Ryan (History) and student Christopher Klapakis for Development Programs in Post-Imperial Europe
Michael W. Sances (Political Science) and student Isabella Francisco for District Attorney Web Site and Social Media Collection
Mathieu Wimmer (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Cass Tilley for Studying the impact of early life adversity on substance use traits using rodent models of addiction

Fall 2023

Eunice Chen (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Mahanoor Rafi for Changes in cognitive, and emotional functioning with increasing physical activity in young adults
Nyron N. Crawford (Political Science) and student James L. Gray for Strike from the Record: Administrative Burden in Expungement of Criminal Records
Tania Giovannetti (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Melissa Rosahl for Relations between Language Production and the Performance of Everyday Tasks in Older Adults
Tania Giovannetti (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Adaeze Uwaomah for Improving Everyday Action in People with Dementia
Donald A. Hantula (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Julia Zortea for Human Robot Interaction
Johanna Jarcho (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Thais Costa Macedo de Arruda for Childhood maltreatment and memory bias for social and non-social events: Exploring neural mechanisms that promote risk for mental health problems
Michael A. Leeds (Economics) and student Owen Hurley for Recruiting and Reproduction: Do Female Athletes Consider Abortion Laws When Deciding on a College?
Alan McPherson (History) and student Matthew Friedman for Vengeance in American Foreign Relations
Melissa E. Noel (Criminal Justice) and student Anna Palillero-Benito for The Double-Edged Sword: A Qualitative Examination of Parental Incarceration and Parental Immigration Detention
Ingrid Olson (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Caroline George for How the “little brain” may play a key role in modulating socioemotional thought and behavior
Victor M. Pueyo Zoco (Spanish and Portuguese) and student Meira Galapo for The Literature of the Commons. Reading the Early Modern Spanish Canon Otherwise (1450-1700)
Leslie A. Reeder-Myers (Anthropology) and student Abasi Nicholson for Immigration and the Philadelphia Dream, 1750-1850
Eileen Ryan (History) and student Olivia Blake for Racialization of Italian Immigrants in the Americas
Michael W. Sances (Political Science) and student Jaydyn Doebler for District Attorney Web Site and Social Media Collection
Thomas F Shipley (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student and Neuroscience for Understanding the Unspoken: Comprehension and Communication of Uncertainty in Gestures
David V. Smith (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Matthew Drayton for Characterizing Risk Factors for Financial Exploitation
Kimberly D. Williams (Anthropology) and student Eitan Runyan for Exploring Dental Anthropology with a Future Dentist
Mathieu Wimmer (Psychology and Neuroscience) and student Camryn Krumbhaar for The role of the hippocampus in the intensification of drug craving using animal models of substance use

image of a student testimonial on a table tent for the 2022 LAURA ceremony

Past LAURA Scholar Awards

Spring 2023

Fall 2022

Deborah Drabick (Psychology) and student Georgia Moon for Neuropsychological and peer predictors of Coping Power intervention outcomes
Orfeo Fioretos (Political Science) and student Lauren Ross for The United States and the Politics of Multilateralism Since the End of the Cold War
Kevin Henry (Geography and Urban Studies) and student Jacob Downey for Socioeconomic Disparities in Female Breast Cancer Stage at Diagnosis: Revisiting Neighborhood Poverty using Residential Histories
Jeremy Mennis (Geography and Urban Studies) and student Kai Yuen for Digitizing Historical Maps of Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern Shore to Support the Geographic Analysis of the Underground Railroad
Vishnu Murty (Psychology) and student Bailey Spangler for Memory fragmentation during threat-drive naturalistic events
Nora Newcombe (Psychology ) and student John Erardi for Development of Naturalistic Event Memory
Lauren Olsen (Sociology) and student Meghan Gongalla for Curricular Opportunities and Constraints: Reproducing Privilege and Inequality in U.S. Medical Education
Ingrid Olson (Psychology) and student Obinnaya Onwukanjo for Event Segmentation and Remembering Natural Events
Aunshul Rege (Criminal Justice) and student Parker Naugle for Disinformation, Cyberwar, and Critical Infrastructure Security
Mónica Ricketts (History) and student Ignacio A. Vasconsellos Riva for Hunger and Famines in Bourbon Proyectista Writings
David Smith (Psychology) and student Ishika Kohli for Age-Related Differences in Social and Economic Reward Processing
Kimberly Williams (Anthropology) and student Asher Quentin Riley for Corinth Bioarchaeological Digital Database Development

Summer 2022

Spring 2022

Fall 2021

Summer 2021

Spring 2021

Fall 2020

Rebecca Alpert (Religion) and student Jessica Levine for Jewish Feminists and the UN Decade on Women Oral History Project
Tania Giovannetti (Psychology) and student Dhruvi Mehta for Objective Assessment of Cognition and Everyday Function in Older Adults
Victor Hugo Gutierrez-Velez (Geography and Urban Studies) and student Evelyn Gorey for Mapping Drivers of Ecosystem Change in a Biodiversity Hotspot in Colombia
Andrew Karpinski (Psychology) and student Phiona Tran for Religious Beliefs and Beliefs in Free Will
Judith Levine (Sociology) and student Emily Wilson for Landing a Job: Moving from College to Employment in the New Economy
Ajima Olaghere (Criminal Justice) and student Makayla Maynard for Legitimacy in Corrections at a Time of Crisis: Perspectives from Incarcerated Individuals
Pedro Silos (Economics) and student Samuel Von Mahs for Inferring Risk Aversion from Career Choices
David Smith (Psychology) and student Gemma Goldstein for Shared Reward Processing and Substance Use
Kimberly Williams (Anthropology) and student Matthew Williams for Reconstructing Mortuary Ritual in Early Bronze Age Oman: The Role of Animals and Fire
Janire Zalbidea (Spanish) and student Lytice Gordon for Factors Impacting Foreign Language Reading Comprehension

Summer 2020

Featured News

2023 Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Awards (LAURAs) Ceremony

by College of Liberal Arts

April 21

Temple University's College of Liberal Arts (CLA) held its annual Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Awards (LAURAs) Ceremony last week. The LAURAs grant $2,000 each to under...

College of Liberal Arts