Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

Dussy Yermolayeva appreciates her involvement in every aspect of the research cycle in Dr. Calvert's lab. (Photo: Roland Dimaya)

By LiAnna Davis

Facebook is an integral part of most college students’ social lives, but for Dussy Yermolayeva, it’s also a part of her academic life. Yermolayeva, a senior psychology and sociology double major, is working in Dr. Sandra Calvert’s Children’s Digital Media Center with post-doctoral student Tiffany Pempek on a Facebook survey study.

“We are looking at the various ways in which Facebook affects identity, socialization, and privacy issues that young adults face,” says Yermolayeva. She also works on the Curious Buddies study, which examines how children 2-3 years of age learn from interactive media, and whether or not they can translate this knowledge to the real world.

Yermolayeva, a senior from Newton, Massachusetts, became interested in children’s technology use after taking two of Dr. Calvert’s courses, Childhood and Adolescence, and Children and Technology. She has enjoyed her work in the lab and hopes to continue her research as a developmental psychology graduate student next year. Yermolayeva is planning to focus her graduate studies on the development of cognitive functioning in young children, which relates to some of the projects she is working on for Dr. Calvert.

While finding appropriate subjects for developmental studies can be a challenge because of the small age range window, Yermolayeva is not letting this deter her from her research goals.

“My favorite thing about research is the idea of taking past findings in a new direction,” she says. “It is really exciting to be able to take a past study and either apply it to a new group of people, or to a different form of media that has recently been developed. For example, the Curious Buddies study is a new application of some of the studies conducted by Dr. Georgene Troseth, which dealt with symbolic representations on the TV screen. The study that we are conducting has taken this further by presenting information in an interactive format on the computer.”

Looking back, Yermolayeva is grateful for Dr. Calvert’s insistence on her involvement in the entire research cycle, which has given Yermolayeva a solid foundation to develop her interests from.

“Dr. Calvert provides the research assistants with a lot of feedback during the research process while giving them the opportunity to take part in the entire process of developing a study and publishing the findings,” she says. “Working with Dr. Calvert has exposed me to all aspects of the research process, including finding background literature, coding data, and interpreting statistical results. Such experience will be extremely useful when doing research at the graduate level. I think this is very unique because a lot of labs restrict the degree to which the undergraduate research assistants can be involved.”

In addition to her work in Dr. Calvert’s lab, Yermolayeva is co-captain of the women’s lightweight crew team at Georgetown. She says that the sport and Georgetown’s team have developed a lot during her three years here, and she looks forward to continuing that progress this year.

“Being part of a team at Georgetown has made my experience here that much better and has balanced my academic life quite nicely,” she says. “I didn’t row in high school, so it has been a difficult but also an immensely rewarding experience.”

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