Joei Camarote is a Senior Psychology major with a minor in Cognitive Neuroscience. Under the guidance of Dr. Elizabeth Gunderson, Joei is a Research Assistant in Temple University’s Cognition & Learning Lab (TUCL). Researchers in TUCL investigate mathematical development from cognitive and social perspectives, as well as the development of math anxiety and math stereotypes. During the academic year, Joei spends about 9 hours in lab each week, where she runs participants for a parent-child interaction study, transcribes and codes videos of participants, and assists in other ways as needed. The study that she focuses on investigates whether different types of parent-child interaction lead to improvement in children’s spatial and language skills. As an undergraduate research assistant, Joei has a postdoctoral mentor, Jing Tian, who meets with her weekly to discuss interesting research articles and helps her develop her honors thesis. During the Summer of 2022, Joei worked in the TUCL full-time and travelled with the lab to different elementary schools in the area to run participants.  

In addition to working in a lab, Joei is a mentor in Temple’s Leadership & Career Studies Program (L&CS). L&CS is a program dedicated to providing a college experience to students with intellectual disabilities. She is an academic and social mentor who helps students with classwork, projects, and homework, as well as supporting them with extracurricular engagement such as joining student organizations and attending campus events. She feels that working at L&CS is a very rewarding experience. In addition to L&CS, Joei is also the General Body Meeting (GBM) Coordinator of Temple’s chapter of Active Minds. Active Minds is a club dedicated to erasing the stigma surrounding mental health. As the GBM Coordinator, she plans and leads biweekly meetings with members, and aims to provide a safe space for them to discuss mental health, whether it be general resources or our own personal experiences. Joei is also a part of the Temple Honors Admissions and Transition Team (HATT). As a HATT member, she assists prospective honors students with their decision to attend Temple at recruitment events. Joei is also an active member Psychology Majors Association (PMA) and the Psychology Honors Society, Psi Chi.  

During Joei’s time at Temple, she has received three awards, including a Lambert Scholarship. Dave Lambert of the Lambert Foundation provides full tuition scholarships to selected Honors students at Temple, but his kindness and generosity doesn’t stop there. Dave also serves as a mentor to his scholarship recipients, and he offered guidance when Joei applied for a Diamond Award at Temple. The Diamond Award is given to students that have demonstrated superior leadership, academic achievement, service to the University, and impact on a community, and Joei received this award in Spring 2022. She is also a recipient of a LAURA award from the College of Liberal Arts in Summer 2022 , which provided research support funding to assist Dr. Elizabeth Gunderson in her projects investigating the effect on children's spatial skills of an at-home, parent-led intervention. The combination of taking psychology courses and working in TUCL ignited Joei’s passion for research. Joei’s favorite class was Dr. Jason Chein’s Foundations of Cognitive Psychology course because he made learning very interactive. Upon obtaining her undergraduate degree, she hopes to gain experience as a lab manager in a research setting before pursuing a doctoral degree in developmental psychology.