Meetings

Depending on your "stage" in the program, we may meet more or less often. Generally, you will fall into 1 of 3 categories for individual meeting requirements:

every week for PhD students actively collecting data
every other week for PhD students who are pretty much done actively collecting data but still needing to defend, and PsyD students in the process of writing their doc projects
every month for PhD and PsyD students who are done collecting / writing / defending etc... basically just need to get your paper out

Please feel free to request additional meetings as needed - this schedule is just to make sure nobody falls through the cracks. If you would like to meet individually outside of this minimal schedule, please schedule a time using my Bookings page.

It is important that you attend (on time) all meetings. If you are unable to attend a meeting, please let me know ASAP. Attendance at all individual and group lab meetings is required to get a “Satisfactory” grade for your research units, unless excused in advance for some Very Important Reason.

We generally have occasional “virtual” group lab meetings using Zoom video conferencing software (which is free for llu.edu email addresses). The group meetings serve multiple purposes, including practicing presentation and communication skills, developing and honing critical thinking skills, practicing team problem-solving, and maximizing the potential success of everyone’s project by leveraging the diverse skills and experience of all lab members. Lab meeting are a chance for the lab to tackle each others’ problems together. We have a lot of people with diverse backgrounds and different areas of expertise in the lab, so you never know who will be able to provide you with useful information.

Participation in lab meetings is mandatory for all members, no matter how junior or senior. If you don’t understand what someone in the lab is saying, please ask. It is expected that everyone will have different strengths and weaknesses, but at the very least, everyone should be able to describe the basic aims and approaches of all the projects in the lab. A typical meeting agenda is listed below. Please show up prepared to address each of these items:

Announcements to make everyone aware of any new campus talks, papers, grants, conferences, departmental issues, individual / lab achievements, etc.
A discussion of any administrative issues that need immediate attention (supplies, equipment, schedules, logistics, etc.).
A round-table in which each student gets ~5 minutes to address the group. This is not a formal presentation, but a graph or 2 could be shown if helpful. Your time is best used to get input from others in the lab about how to tackle a problem, analyze some data, interpret a graph, and/or decide how to proceed. Alternatively, if you have just read an interesting paper, you could discuss its relevance to the lab. Since time is brief, it is useful to prepare your main point(s) in advance.
Summary of any action items to be entered into Planner.
Maybe followed by a student presentation or journal paper discussion.

Occasionally, students will be asked to give a ~30-45 minute slideshow presentation that could include an update of project data / graphs, a literature review for a project idea, an outline of a manuscript in preparation for publication, an in-depth discussion of a paper or group of related papers, confusing findings, different approaches to data analysis, a tutorial on a specific technique or assay, etc.

Finally, we will have occasional “journal club” style meetings in which the group discusses papers of interest (which I will usually disseminate at least 1 week before the meeting). Students are encouraged to recommend papers for journal club meetings. The purpose of these meetings is to keep up-to-date with the literature, foster professional development, and learn / practice critical appraisal skills. All students should read the papers before the meeting and come prepared to discuss them, including issues like:

What was the purpose of the paper?
What question / problem was it trying to address?
What were the independent and dependent variables?
What techniques were used?
What were the results?
How large and precise was the effect?
Were the results valid?
What questions remain or were unanswered?
What was really cool about the paper? What was lame?
What are the implications of this paper for the field / science / humanity?
What are the implications of this paper for current and/or future lab projects?

Please note that School of Behavioral Health faculty are on 10-month appointments, meaning that we are officially “off” from July 1-August 31. Therefore, the lab generally does not hold regular meetings over the summer (except for special circumstances). We will, however, definitely continue interactions regarding ongoing projects, whether in person, via phone, or online.

This is your official algorithm for determining your schedule, in order of precedence:

Classes required for degree completion
Clinical placement obligations at non-department clinics
Staff meetings at department clinics
Research lab group meetings
Course labs that are scheduled outside of class time
Group supervision at department clinics
Clients at department clinics
Individual research meetings/Individual clinical supervision at department clinics
Student’s work schedule