February 2015 Student Spotlight

Meet Hannah Elliott

Research Lab: Personality and Psychopathology 

Faculty: Dr. Chris Hopwood

Hannah has worked in my lab for two years. Her main initial responsibilities were to code videos using a joystick assessment device. She was routinely our best coder, which led me to promote her to lead the training of new coders. She did such an amazing job that she now runs my coder meetings, has revised our training procedure, and I regularly consult with her regarding issues related to the science and management within the lab. 

In addition to being very smart and creative, Hannah is the most responsible and professional undergraduate I have ever worked with. She is a leader in my lab, sets an excellent example, and I trust her completely. 

I particularly think that she deserves this kind of recognition because she is the kind of person that does a lot of the "dirty work"; that keeps my lab functioning, but which doesn't necessarily get a lot of credit (e.g., we have published several papers in which she played a vital role in terms of training the coders who produced our data). I really can't think of someone in my experience who is more deserving of this kind of recognition. 

Hannah went so far above and beyond what I asked of her in selecting and training coders this year that I was flabbergasted. She is exceedingly professional and conscientious. She has put many more than the 10 hours/week I request of my students, solely out of her interest in our research and her dedication to the lab. 

Hannah is conducting her own, independently designed research. Not as a class, not because she is trying to get into graduate school (she is, but this project is too nascent to be impactful in her applications), but because she is genuinely interested in science. It is extremely unusual for an undergraduate to do this, and even more so for one to have proven their abilities sufficiently for me to agree to supervise it. I believe that hers is going to be a very important study.