The PEAR Lab is committed to equity and diversity in our research group, and we enthusiastically welcome applications from individuals of all genders, race/ethnicities, sexual orientation, and body size.
Materials from all qualified applicants will be considered.
Undergraduate Students
We are NOT recruiting research assistants (RAs) at this time (our lab is currently full for Fall 2024).
As part of the PEAR lab, undergraduate students will learn about eating and co-morbid disorders and gain first-hand research experience. Students can participate through the Psychology Honours Program, the Work Study Program, or as a volunteer research assistant.
For more information about Work Study positions, please visit the Office of the Registrar’s webpage (https://registrar.uwo.ca/student_finances_bursaries_workstudy.html).
Volunteering in the PEAR Lab requires a minimum of a 2-semester commitment of 10 hours per week. If you can commit to this and are interested in gaining experience working with us, please send your resume or cv and grade report to pearlab@uwo.ca.
Prospective Graduate Students
Thank you for your interest in the Psychobiology of Eating and Related Disorders (PEAR) Lab! Dr. Bodell is planning to review applications from prospective MSc or PhD students for the 2024-25 admissions cycle for the Clinical Science and Psychopathology cluster in the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario.
Below are some questions I frequently get asked about our lab and graduate program:
1. What are you looking for in a prospective student?
Strong applicants to the PEAR Lab are passionate about one or more research areas in our lab, which span from understanding the psychopathology of eating disorders to suicide prevention. Incoming students have a strong academic record, have completed an honours degree or independent study and coursework in Psychology, and have usually gained at least one year of research experience in psychology or a related field, ideally including post-baccalaureate experience and/or independent research experience (for example, through a senior thesis, poster presentations, publication experience).
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I am best suited to support students who are interested in careers that involve basic and/or applied research. This includes a wide variety of research paths. Examples of basic research subfields relevant to my lab's research are experimental psychopathology and clinical neuroscience. Careers in basic research include faculty positions (e.g., departments of psychology, psychiatry, or neuroscience), jobs with some government research agencies (e.g., Canadian Institutes of Health Research), and research-focused positions in the private sector. On the applied research side, experiences in my lab best prepare students for employment in academic medical centers and roles that involve applying science to optimize clinical services (e.g., patient screenings).
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Consistent with the training model at Western, I believe that a strong foundation in research methods and knowledge of evidence-based practice is essential to becoming an effective, informed clinician. However, I am not the most effective mentor for applicants who are interested in careers that primarily or exclusively involve clinical practice.
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I also value diversity in background and life experiences. If you are from a traditionally underrepresented group or background or have taken an idiosyncratic path to get to this point, I encourage you to apply if we otherwise fit your scholarly interests and goals.
2. Should I e-mail you to express interest in your lab?
It is not necessary to email me before applying. Whether or not you email me will have no impact on your ultimate chances of being invited for an interview or being offered admissions to our program. I will carefully review all applications that list me as a primary mentor on official applications submitted through Western.
3. Can you tell me about your mentorship style?
Mentoring students and trainees is one of my favourite aspects of my career! I use a developmental mentorship style in which I provide more 'hands-on' mentorship and supervision early on in a student's training, with increasing independence over time. My goal is to train my students to become independent clinical scientists. I generally meet with graduate students weekly through individual and/or group meetings. I am also available to meet more (or less) often, depending on individual students' needs. I aim to help trainees identify their own research and career goals and encourage them to chart their own path. I hope to model self-care (work/life balance) and strive an inclusive, warm, and collaborative research lab.
4. Where do you see your research going over the next few years?
The PEAR Lab has multiple ongoing research projects and we're always developing new projects and collaborations. Over the next few years, I anticipate continuing to focus on interdisciplinary research on the psychological and biological processes underlying eating disorder behaviours, particularly binge eating, using a broad range of methods, including longitudinal survey-based studies, behavioural methods, and collaborations that include neuroimaging techniques. Much of the research in my lab is student-driven. Recent student projects have focused on the role of self-compassion in suicide prevention; understanding the complex interplay among weight history, weight stigma, and eating pathology; understanding the specificity of reward-related processes in relation to loss of control eating; and developing and validating assessments to understand and capture the various reasons people may engage in eating disorder behaviours. We currently have funding to examine whether and how neural responses to social evaluation relate to eating disorder symptoms in adolescents. We also have a grant under review related to understanding how reward processing alterations may impact binge eating maintenance.