Please feel free to email Dr. Goldstein (tgoldste[at]gmu[dot]edu) to discuss how you might get involved.
Undergraduates at George Mason University
If you are interested in obtaining research experience in social and emotional learning or developmental science, please contact Dr. Goldstein. Mason undergraduates can participate in the lab as volunteers, for course credit, for work study, or with the OSCAR program.
Summer Interns
The lab has hosted our paid internship since Summer 2017 – Summer 2024 in Fairfax, VA. If the federal funding landscape allows, we will host the internship again in 2026. Please check in January, 2026 to see if there are applications available.
Masters Students
For 2025-2026 admissions cycle, we are looking for masters students who are interested in any combination of field-based, school-based, and laboratory work. MA students work on current research projects and are welcome to bring their own research ideas and studies into the lab.
Doctoral Students
For the 2025-2026 admissions season, the lab anticipates taking one student. We are interested in students who want to investigate questions in social and emotional intervention, learning, and imaginative/ theatrical experiences. Previous experience in a variety of settings (schools, laboratory experiments), methodological techniques (qualitative, GLM, HLM) and ages are particularly welcome. Please feel free to contact Dr. Goldstein if you’d like to arrange for a meeting in advance of your application, typically in the spring semester or early in the Fall of the year you apply. Please include your CV and a short paragraph of your research interests and how they match with the work in the lab in your email.
There are a number of nice resources online to help prospective students think about faculty advising, CVs, Statements of Purpose and other information about applying to graduate school in Psychology. While each University has its own process and application portal, these websites include general information that you may find helpful as you prepare your application to the PLAY lab at George Mason University.
https://as.tufts.edu/psychology/prospective-students/graduate-programs/finding-faculty-advisor