Volunteer Opportunities
Student and Community Volunteers
Student volunteer, Lara Karadeniz, academic year 2016-2017
Qualified UVA undergraduate, interested graduate students, and qualified community members work for DOPS as volunteers, thus affording them an opportunity to learn about the scope of the Division’s research. The volunteers are interviewed and supervised by the DOPS Researchers and the Research Specialist. Once a volunteer is accepted and completes the necessary paperwork, they are offered the option of working on a number of projects such as: converting qualitative interviews and case narratives into quantitative data via a supervised coding process; entering data connected to cases of children who remember previous lives into a large SPSS database; assisting with database projects; assisting with the Ian Stevenson Memorial Library; assisting with research projects in the EEG lab to name a few possibilities. We are always looking for interested students, graduate students, and community volunteers who can commit to at least 3-4 hours a week.
Those students and community members who have skills in statistics, data management, data processing, and in qualitative coding procedures are especially needed.
- Please send an email describing your interests as related to the research being done here at DOPS
- Send your resume to DOPS Research Coordinator, Elliott Gish (ket3qy@uvahealth.org).
- Once we receive your resume, and your explanation of your area of interests within the scope of the current DOPS research, we will review your materials to determine if our needs match your interests.
- If we decide to go forward, you will fill out an official UVA volunteer form.
- Once the volunteer form is completed and approved, you will need to complete UVA Internal Review Board training to ensure appropriate and confidential handling of all materials related to the research. We ask that you do both the UVA IRB-SBS and IRB-HSR training. These are online courses that require about a 2 hour commitment for each type of IRB CITI training. Links to the training will be provided once the volunteer orientation process has begun.
- The students and community members who present themselves as volunteers will need to commit to at least 3-4 hours every week for the arrangement to be successful for the student, the community member and for the DOPS research project.
Please note, depending on fluctuating research support needs, we can only take a certain number of qualified volunteers per semester.
If you are interested in joining our research team as a volunteer academic researcher to support the ongoing research at DOPS, we are interested in hearing from you.
It is possible to set up special research projects related to the scope of what is being studied at UVA DOPS, provided that a member of the DOPS research faculty has made arrangements to act as collaborator or an associate supervisor on the project.
We are seeking those who can bring their own research funding in the following categories:
- Visiting Scholars and professional researchers in related fields such as psychologists, psychiatrists, neurobiologists, neuroscientists, experimental psychologists, religious studies, philosophers and electrical engineers among many others.
- Academic faculty from UVA and other institutions.
- UVA graduate and undergraduate students with special skills and interests.
- Medical students from UVA and other approved academic institutions and medical schools.
If you are interested in submitting a research proposal, and are interested in exploring the possibility of joining our research efforts in an unpaid capacity, please email us at DOPS@virginia.edu and submit the following:
- A brief description of your academic background and interests
- Your current resume or curriculum vitae
- A brief research proposal describing a project related to the scope of the research being done at UVA DOPS
- Your plans for providing your own funding related to the research project you are proposing
These submissions will be reviewed by the DOPS faculty for consideration. We are able to accept a limited number of unpaid guest researchers per year.
Please note, we do not provide course credit or funding to any students, graduate students, medical students or visiting researchers for these specially arranged circumstances.