Hiring undergraduate researchers at Purdue

Thanks to funding from a Purdue Covid-19 Disruption Grant, we are able to hire four undergraduate researchers in the AY21-22 academic year! We are grateful for Purdue’s support of the Crow project. Funding will also allow us to continue working with our developer Mark Fullmer to improve the Crow platform and develop new trajectories for research.

After a training period, these researchers will complete work that helps our project make up for time lost due to Covid-19 restrictions and complications. Undergraduate research assistants will be mentored by experienced undergraduate and graduate researchers and given clear deliverable guidelines, deadlines, and expectations. They will perform the work specified by the grant:

Process and de-identify recently gathered writing research data;

Interview users from the Crow community and compile information to guide Crow developers;

Review the Crow Fellows initiative in collaboration with Crow researchers guiding that project;

Create and update a series of web pages documenting recent Crow work, supporting future grant writing, participant recruitment, and outreach efforts.

Senior Crow researchers will collaborate with the undergraduate researchers to identify which of these tasks offer the best professional growth, and will seek to identify others that develop new skills and experience, such as grant writing, research design, or data collection.

Research assistants can expect to average 10 hours of work per week with an hourly pay rate of $11. There is also a possibility for earning credit hours for internship or research related coursework. Six weeks of Fall 2021 work will focus on onboarding and training; fourteen weeks are budgeted in Spring 2022, for a total of $2,200. Pending funding, positions may be extended.

Crow is a distributed team, so quite a bit of the work will be remote. A typical week will include a few hours of regular meetings online or in our shared Heavilon 201 lab, then independent work and short online meetings as needed with other Crow researchers. Work schedules will be developed to accommodate academic and personal obligations.

Required qualifications

Experience with and/or interest in technical communication, applied linguistics, and diverse areas of writing studies.

Experience with and/or interest conducting user experience research and collaborating with software developers.

Experience with and/or interest in using Google Drive, Basecamp, Slack, and similar software to facilitate distributed work.

Ability to work both collaboratively and independently.

Eligibility to work as an undergraduate student at Purdue University.

To be considered, applicants must send the following materials to Bradley Dilger (dilger@purdue.edu) for screening and an invitation for a face-to-face interview.

A cover letter explaining interest in this position and describing relevant experience;

An up-to-date resume;

Two references who can speak to the candidate’s experience and/or potential.

Candidates are welcome to include a PDF or web-based portfolio including samples of writing from courses, internships, and other contexts, but it is not required.

Screening begins immediately and will conclude when positions are filled. Prospective applicants are welcome to contact Dilger with questions.

Download a printable version of this position announcement.