on the hinshaw lab, jacobs lab, and dance the bay.

1. my summer internships
joseph beltran

2. about me
 name: joseph beltran
 education: 3rd year psych major // uc
berkeley
 internship locations: berkeley, ca & oakland,
ca
 myers-briggs personality indicator: infp
 leadership orientation: symbolic
 core work values: autonomy, creativity, time
freedom, advancement, mission, open
endedness, self expression
 interests: neuroscience, learning & memory,
cognitive research, graphic design, dance,
photography, writing

3. where my interests led me
 summer coursework:
 industrial-organizational
psychology
 personality psychology
 social psychology
 introduction to human
learning and memory
 experiential learning
 internships:
 hinshaw lab – investigated sex
based differences within the
brains of adults with adhd as a
research assistant
 jacobs lab – investigated the
evolutionary role of olfaction in
navigating spatial environments
as a research assistant
 dance the bay – choreographed
and hosted hip-hop dance
classes in the bay area for under-
served youth

4. 16 units over the summer?!
 though extremely busy academically over the summer, I
found that my courses blended together well in
conjunction with this program:
 i/o psych helped me to expand my knowledge of
workplace dynamics and
hiring/management/development practices
 personality and social psych taught me abut the ways in
which personality traits and situational contexts can
influence one’s behavior and interactions
 intro to learning and memory engaged my specific
academic interests in the field of cognitive neuroscience

5. the hinshaw lab experience
pictured is li ka shing center, home of the henry h wheeler jr brain
imaging center where we scan the brains of our subjects

6. the people of the hinshaw lab
principal investigator: steve
hinshaw, phd
lecturer in the uc berkeley psych
department, known for conducting
longitudinal studies for children with
adhd and externalizing disorders
interests: clinical psychology,
developmental psychopathology,
psychosocial/pharmacological
treatments for adhd, the
destigmatization of mental illnesses

7. the people of the hinshaw lab
project manager: megan norr
graduate student in clinical studies,
previously worked at georgetown
university studying cognitive control
in children with autism
interests: cognitive control
processes in attention and emotion,
the role of cognitive control in
developmental disorders,
neurological differences in adults
with adhd

8. the berkeley adults with adhd brain
study
 main objectives: investigate the differences in the brains
of male and female adults with adhd by means fo fmri
scanning & behavioral assessments
 baabs is in part, a followup study to bgals, which has
been one of the longest running longitudinal studies on
adhd, tracking more than 140 girls with adhd from
childhood to adulthood since 1997
 baabs seeks to challenge our understanding of the
general tendencies males and females have in trying to
cope with adhd, whether through aggressive
externalization, or depressive internalization

9. my responsibilities in the hinshaw lab
 assemble paperwork to be mailed to subjects containing
consent forms and project objectives
 prescreen subjects over the phone before appointments
to ensure eligibility for fmri procedures
 assist with the fmri scanning of subjects in the preparation
of patient bed, radiofrequency coil, and
biopac/acqknowledge software
 administer behavioral and neuropsychological
assessments measuring iq and attention (this actually
took 3 months of training for me!)

10. the jacobs lab experience
known affectionately throughout the berkeley psych department
as “the squirrel lab” (among other things)

11. the people of the jacobs lab
principal investigator: lucia jacobs
lecturer in the uc berkeley psych
department, known for research in
the fields of animal cognition,
cognitive evolutionary theory, and
spatial encoding
interests: adaptive patterns in
spatial memory, spatial navigation,
cognitive maps, hippocampal
structure

12. the people of the jacobs lab
project manager: jennifer arter
post-doctoral researcher and
lecturer at uc berkeley and san
francisco state university
interests: evolutionary function of
friendships, attachment theory,
developmental psychology,
memory, cognitive psychology

13. the purposing and representing odor
utility in space and time study (proust)
 main objectives: investigate the ways in which humans may
implicitly recruit olfactory function as a means to navigate their
spatial environments
 much of this study's assumptions are built upon the findings of
edward tolman, who found that animals like can learn to
efficiently navigate their environments through the use of
cognitive maps
 evolutionarily, olfaction has been key to enabling such navigation
for our earliest mammal relatives
 this study aims to address to what extent these processes
continue to exist for humans in spatial encoding and implicit
memory

14. my responsibilities in the jacobs lab:
 administer sensory tests measuring
olfactory function (sniffin' sticks test)
 instruct participants to perform a task
assessing their sense of direction,
memory, and perceptual encoding of
space
 ensure accurate data collection and
behavioral coding throughout each
experiment session
 attend weekly collaborative lab meetings
to provide feedback and suggestions for
improvement in study design

15. dance the bay
presenting the sassiest group of 2nd graders you’ll ever meet

16. “"...dance the bay offers weekly dance classes on-
site at preschool and after school programs around
the bay area. classes are taught by uc berkeley
student teachers who are passionate about dance
education."

17. responsibilities in dance the bay:
 attending biweekly choreography training
workshops
 creating lesson plans for each of my
classes, outlining learning goals and
outcomes for my students
 teaching weekly beginner hip-hop dance
classes at the berkeley ymca teen center
 classes typically consisted of 30-40 boys and
girls from the age group of 7-10 years old

18. applying the four frames
 structural:
 as a research assistant in labs that required efficient use of time and
space spent with subjects, i learned just how important it can be for
to delegate tasks well by clearly defining roles and tasks for each lab
member
 compared to the jacobs lab, the hinshaw lab is much larger in size
and thus, has a more rigidly defined hierarchy to reduce lapses of
communication between different project managers and the
principal investigator
 though dance the bay (for the time being) remains a small
organization, it still relies on the assignment of leadership groups in
areas of logistics, choreography, and outreach to train their
respective interns and guest choreographers

19. applying the four frames
 human resources:
 dance the bay, more than anything, explicitly reminded me
of the value of the human person through service and
collaboration in the creative arts
 in addition, as suggested by my previous slides, i really did
meet some pretty incredible people in each of my
internships
 the people we meet in the workplace can be valuable
stores of knowledge, wisdom, and experience that can’t
be found anywhere else! if only for the opportunity to
hear more of these stories, i will continue to network and
be proactive in forging more of these connections

20. applying the four frames
 symbolic frame:
 dance the bay is highly mission driven. more than 50% of the
application process involved reflecting upon how i could
utilize my skills and talents to further dtb’s greater purpose to
bring the joy of dance to under-served communities in the
bay area
 as a member of the hinshaw lab (given its association with
many studies regarding the stigmatization of mental illnesses
& learning disorders) i found that much of our organizational
cohesion came from collectively desiring an ideal of better
understanding these conditions so as to improve the lives of
those afflicted by them

21. applying the four frames
 political:
 within the labs i was a part of, i definitely took note of sense
of competition, both between labs and projects within labs,
sparked by limited resources of money, time, and space.
such competition tended to be mild and never explicit, but
nevertheless existent
 something I particularly liked however, was the sense of
mutual respect and appreciation I garnered from talking
to my principal investigators about other psychology
researchers and professors on campus. I think this says a
lot about the collaborative nature of research more than
the competitive side

22. life lessons learned (pt 1)
 hinshaw lab: the processes associated with diagnosing
and treating mental illnesses can be unbelievably
complex. what can be even more confusing is the
question of how we as a society can seek to remove the
stigma associated with these conditions. though we still
have a long way to go, new studies incorporating recent
advances in brain imaging techniques have shown
promise in working to affect such a societal change.

23. life lessons learned (pt 2)
 jacobs lab: constant revision is to be expected in the
refinement of psych research studies. important things to
take into consideration include the inclusionary and
exclusionary criteria for subject participation as well as
the controlling of any possible confounding variables in
your proposed correlations. these elements are essential
in determining whether or not you can logically draw
conclusions from the results you receive from your study
(also known as content validity).

24. life lessons learned (pt 3)
 dance the bay: not everyone may be necessarily born
with the same kind of musicality or movement to the
same song – but these kinds of differences should be
appreciated as a function of how universal yet diverse
the artistic mediums of music and dance can be: across
culture, age, gender, race, ses, and so on

25. concluding isf 187
 what I especially enjoyed about this course was how it
was unified by the idea of experiential learning. I liked
practicing the idea of being intentional about what I did
in my internships by reflecting upon what I could gain
from them, as far as networking and working experiences
went. I loved how this steady sense of introspection and
written expression furthered my passion for the things I
was learning about and doing in each of my workplaces,
because I took time to engage and reflect on them.

26. concluding isf 187
 how I have grown as a result of this course and my
internships lie in my improved management of time,
improved self-awareness of interests, and improved
understanding of the next steps I will need to take in
order to reach my goals of conducting neuroscience
research of my own.