This spring semester, I volunteered as a General RA Assistant at the University of Maryland's Center for Early Childhood Education and Intervention (CECEI) in the Anacostia Building. CECEI's mission is to translate research into scalable educational practices, build community capacity, and promote family engagement across Maryland, particularly in high-need communities. My site supervisor was Naomi Patton.
I discovered this opportunity through a psychology blog website where CECEI was actively advertising for a general research assistant. My biggest piece of advice to future SGC Scholars: don't limit your search to traditional job boards. Lab and research center postings often appear in niche academic blogs, departmental newsletters, and even social media pages. When reaching out to a potential supervisor, keep your initial email concise, introduce yourself, mention your specific interest in their work, and attach your resume. Following up once after a week is completely appropriate if you don't hear back.
My work spanned both technical and administrative support. On the data side, I completed training in Adobe, R, and SPSS to better assist with research needs and used Excel to organize data for a children's book program. I also gathered and compiled data from other companies and universities to map which parts of Maryland had strong childcare and teacher education resources versus which areas were underserved. Beyond data work, I supported the Maryland Early EdCorp (MEEC) program by organizing slideshows, preparing Apprenticeship Certificates, and building practice exams for early childhood educators working toward their Child Development Associate (CDA®) credential. I also provided hands-on tech support, configuring Chromebooks, troubleshooting Wi-Fi, verifying software installations, and ensuring devices met program standards before distribution to students in the Prince George's County area.
Through this experience, I gained a deeper understanding of how behavioral and social science research is applied to real-world educational policy and intervention. The shortage of qualified early childhood educators in Maryland, combined with deeply inequitable access to quality care in high-need communities, has measurable downstream effects on child development outcomes. Working with data on childcare availability across the state helped me see how researchers identify gaps and prioritize outreach, which is a core part of translating science into action.
This experience made the connection between research and community welfare impossible to ignore. Every data point I compiled represented a real gap in access to a family without affordable childcare, an educator without the credentials to advance. It reinforced that science, when done well, is not confined to a lab. It reaches into communities and shapes lives. This experience has strengthened my interest in research that sits at the intersection of psychology, education, and public policy. I plan to be more intentional about seeking out research opportunities that have a direct community-facing application, rather than purely theoretical work. Before this internship, my career interests were somewhat general. After seeing the pipeline from data collection to program delivery to community impact, I've become more drawn to applied research roles and positions where scientific work directly informs programs that serve underrepresented populations. Whether that leads me toward public health, educational psychology, or policy research, this experience has made clear that I want my career to have tangible social impact, as Prince George's County is home to many marginalized communities that face real barriers to quality education and childcare. Every credential earned, every Chromebook distributed, and every dataset organized is ultimately in service of those people. Being a small part of that work this semester has been both humbling and motivating, and it has given me a much clearer sense of the kind of researcher and professional I want to become.