What is the Dorothy and David Cooper Scholarship?

The Dorothy and David Cooper Summer Research Fellowship was designed to enhance undergraduate students' access to research opportunities and in particular, to ensure equitable access to such opportunities. This endowed summer undergraduate research fellowship provides financial support for undergraduate students to engage in 250 hours of active supervised research effort (approximately 10 weeks, 25 hours per week) under the guidance of a faculty supervisor during the summer. The application process involves writing a proposal and successful applicants complete a written research paper in the format of an article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal or a grant proposal. This experience often serves as a funnel into our honors program, providing undergraduates with an intensive research experience before graduation. Many of our Cooper fellows have moved on to research careers including receiving their PhDs or MDs. Read about our alumni below:

2025 Dorothy and David Cooper Scholarship Application

Fellowship Awards: Funding in the amount of $4,000 - $5,000 (depending on the size of available funds) will be awarded to outstanding students majoring in psychology who are completing a research project in the summer of 2025.

Application Deadline: The complete application is due by Monday, April 21, 2025. Please send all materials to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Scholarship Alumni

2024 Alumni

Astha Shah

Under the supervision of Dr. Alexander Kusnecov, Astha Shah completed their project titled "C-fos expression in male C57BL/6J mice after contextual fear conditioning and extinction."

Brianna Clark

Under the supervision of Dr. Valerie Jones-Taylor, Brianna Clark completed their project titled "The "Karen" conundrum: An evaluation of meta-stereotypes in viewing positive and negative interracial interactions in the media."

Brooke Tenet

Under the supervision of Dr. David Barker, Brooke Tenet completed their project titled "The role of lateral preoptic area glutamate neurons in motivational behaviors in mice."

Catherine Montgomery

Under the supervision of Dr. Benjamin Samuels, Catherine Montgomery completed their project titled "CCK+ BLA neurons and their effect on stress and outcome devaluation."

Christian Nicolas

Under the supervision of Dr. Jessica Hamilton, Christian Nicolas completed their project titled "Examining the effect of race on negative self-identity outcomes from cyberbullying."

Cortney Hilliard

Under the supervision of Dr. Benjamin Samuels, Cortney Hilliard completed their project titled "Chronic non-discriminatory social defeat stress: investigating stress and motivation in a mouse model."

Eli Tarlow

Under the supervision of Dr. Louis Matzel, Eli Tarlow completed their project titled "The additive/interactive effects of stresson anxiety induction in mice."

Emily Milo

Under the supervision of Dr. Jenny Wang, Emily Milo completed their project titled "The necessity of one-to-one correspondence in 14 to 18-month old's' counting recognition."

Hiba Babekr

Under the supervision of Dr. Jessica Hamilton, Hiba Babekr completed their project titled "Exploring online mental health support-seeking behavior among first-generation adolescents."

Justin Gusovius

Under the supervision of Dr. David Barker, Justin Gusovius completed their project titled "Role of LPO glutamate neurons in nociceptive behaviors in mice."

JY Jang

Under the supervision of Dr. Gandalf Nicolas, JY Jang completed their project titled "Evaluating expectations of a gender binary: How relationship cues influence gendered perceptions of non-binary individuals."

Khushi Shah

Under the supervision of Dr. Alan Leslie, Khushi Shah completed their project titled "A closer look at how we learn to count: Exploring individual variability in longitudinal single-case studies using Bayesian change point analysis."

Lauren Hunsdorfer

Under the supervision of Dr. Alexander Kusnecov, Lauren Hunsdorfer completed their project titled "How does Zoom impact autonomic arousal connected to communication during an online-learning experience?"

Luke Stanton

Under the supervision of Dr. Teresa Leyro, Luke Stanton completed their project titled "Examining the relationship between cardiac vagal control and cognitive affective vulnerabilities: A multi-sample analysis."

Madison Yip

Under the supervision of Dr. Kasia Bieszczad, Madison Yip completed their project titled "Auditory brainstem response assessments may serve as a diagnostic tool for detecting early-stage Alzheimer's disease."

Rachel Mesa

Under the supervision of Dr. Diana Sanchez, Rachel Mesa completed their project titled "Coping with multiracial identity contestation."

Raynold Pandi

Under the supervision of Dr. Diana Sanchez, Raynold Pandi completed their project titled "Education confrontation style as a buffer against the effects of discrmination on stress."

Shaiza Shahzad

Under the supervision of Dr. Jenny Wang, Shaiza Shahzad completed their project titled "Counting effects on large number word representation in 2 and 3 year old's."

Shannon Carratura

Under the supervision of Dr. Shana Cole, Shannon Carratura completed their project titled "Social goal disengagement: How do others influence our decision to disengage."

Shurafa Thowfeeq

Under the supervision of Dr. Shana Cole, Shurafa Thowfeeq completed their project titled "Understanding goal-striving stress: A mixed methods exploration of stress in goal pursuit."

2023 Alumni

Komal Patel

Under the supervision of Dr. Louis Matzel, Komal Patel completed their project titled "The Effects of Sleep Deprivation Generalized Anxiety Induction in Mice Introduction ."

Hailey Becker

Under the supervision of Dr. Diana Sanchez, Hailey Becker completed their project titled "The role of including pleasure and LGBTQ+ content in sex education for young women's positive sexuality development."

Madison Cortes

Under the supervision of Dr. Shana Cole, Madison Cortes completed their project titled "Goal-Disengagement Attitudes in the Age of Grit."

Madison Vigdor

Under the supervision of Dr. Diana Sanchez, Madison Vigdor completed their project titled "Race Processing as a Mechanism to Reduce Racial Essentialism Project Overview."

Jason Marum

Under the supervision of Dr. Teresa Leyro, Jason Marum completed their project titled "The Impact of Perceived Social Support on Cognitive Stress Appraisals in the Context of Varying Feedback Valence Among Daily Smokers."

Rena Rachlin

Under the supervision of Dr. Jenny Wang, Rena Rachlin completed their project titled "Development of infants' counting recognition."

Swetha Jayaraman

Under the supervision of Dr. Diana Sanchez, Swetha Jayaraman completed their project titled "Race Processing Among White Individuals."

Megan Ruskey

Under the supervision of Dr. Gandalf Nicolas, Megan Ruskey completed their project titled "Evaluating perceptions of intersectional identities across professional contexts: An application of the Spontaneous Stereotype Content Model."

Brittany Hague

Under the supervision of Dr. Karin Stromswold, Brittany Hague completed their project titled "Acoustic analysis of functional prosody in college students with and without ASD."

Paula Sholander

Under the supervision of Dr. Shana Cole, Paula Sholander completed their project titled "Motivated Cognitive and Perceptual Responses to Gun Policy Information."

Athena Thai

Under the supervision of Dr. Jessica Hamilton, Athena Thai completed their project titled "The Role of Social Media in Adolescent Body Disturbance, Suicide, and Self-Injury."

Keya Pai

Under the supervision of Dr. Edward Selby and Dr. Vanessa Bal, Keya Pai completed their project titled "Exploring the effects of traumatic experiences in minimally verbal autistic adults: Implications for mental health."

Bianca Caproni

Under the supervision of Dr. Jessica Hamilton, Bianca Caproni completed their project titled "Digital Media and Depressed Mood in Adolescence."

Alexis Kvetnoy

Under the supervision of Dr. Jacob Feldman, Alexis Kvetnoy completed their project titled "Eye Gaze and Social Wayfinding in a Virtual Environment."

Die Hu

Under the supervision of Dr. Alexander Kusnecov, Die Hu completed their project titled "The Role of NOP in Response to Immune Challenge with Central LPS Infusion in Mice"

Shannon Desbiens

Under the supervision of Dr. Jenny Wang, Shannon Desbiens completed their project titled "When can children represent others' false beliefs about hidden objects."

Madison Yip

Under the supervision of Dr. Kasia Bieszczad, Madison Yip completed their project titled "Auditory brainstem plasticity and sensory encoding in relation to behavioral control by auditory cocaine cues."

Nathanial Roslewicz

Under the supervision of Dr. Louis Matzel , Nathanial Roslewicz completed their project titled "Critical periods for the induction of generalized anxiety in genetically heterogeneous mice: Assessment of a laboratory model."

2022 Alumni

Anjiti Dharmapuri

Under the supervision of Dr. Karin Stromswold, Anjiti Dharmapuri completed their project titled "Wh-movement and topicalization in Telugu."

Katie Dickman

Under the supervision of Dr. Diana Sanchez, Katie Dickman completed their project titled "Using expectancy-value theory to predict the strength of orgasm goal pursuit for heterosexual and lesbian women".

Allison Eisenberg

Under the supervision of Dr. Shana Cole, Allison Eisenberg completed their project titled "Protecting against relationship threat: Romantic partner bolstering".

Alexandra Kuziemski

Under the supervision of Dr. Karin Stromswold, Alexandra Kuziemski completed their project titled "How does masking influence prosody production and comprehension in individuals with ASD".

Susanne Molesko

Under the supervision of Dr. Alexander Kusnecov, Susanne Molesko completed their project titled "The role of NOP in Mediating the Physiological response to immune challenge with LPS injection".

Noor Nasir

Under the supervision of Dr. Shana Cole, Noor Nasir completed their project titled "Maladaptive attribution in response to success and failure in STEM."

Harrison Pauwels

Under the supervision of Dr. Diana Sanchez, Harrison Pauwels completed their project titled "Women's orgasms as a masculinity achievement for men: The role of vaginal versus clitoral stimulation."

Jas Sarna

Under the supervision of Dr. Jessica Hamilton, Jas Sarna completed their project titled "Disentangling social media usage, gender, and suicide."

Jakub Suchojad

Under the supervision of Dr. Karin Stromswold, Jakub Suchojad completed their project titled "Investigation into the nature and qualities of Wh-scope marking in Polish."

Sophie Walpole

Under the supervision of Dr. Alexander Kusnecov, Sophie Walpole completed their project titled "The role of the NOP receptor in motivated behavior of mice."

Jasmine Yi

Under the supervision of Dr. Jenny Wang, Jasmine Yi completed their project titled "Counting effects on large number word mappings for children between 2 and 3 years old."

Ashley Swieka

Under the supervision of Dr. Louis Matzel, Ashley Swieka completed their project titled "Imposed dissonance training to promote generalized state anxiety in mice."

Komal Patel

Under the supervision of Dr. Louis Matzel, Komal Patel completed their project titled "Anxiolytic intervention following state anxiety induction through dissonance training."

JessicaPhilip CooperAlumni Jessica Philip

Jessica Philip graduated with honors from Rutgers University in 2022 as a Psychology major. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology at Northern Illinois University. She is working with Dr. Laura Pittman in the Families and Development in Context Lab to study how different aspects of parenting (e.g., racial socialization) serve as protective and risk factors for psychological health outcomes (e.g., racial trauma) in racial/ethnic minority children and adolescents.

Her Cooper project was titled, “Identity cues in therapy: The effect of the perceived link between race, personality, and prejudice on the therapeutic relationship.”

2021 Alumni

Screenshot 2022 10 04 104936 Grace Grmek

Grace Grmek, 2021 Cooper alumna is currently a Clinical Research Coordinator at the Loggia lab at Harvard University. Her project was titled, “The Impact of Reducing Numerical Uncertainty in Children on their Information Seeking Behavior.”

Heta Patel

Heta Patel, 2021 Cooper alumna is an Undergraduate premedical student at Rutgers. Her project was titled, "Pro-inflammatory Cytokine Modulation in Response to Chronic Fentanyl Self-Administration in Rats."

Screenshot 2022 10 04 105706 Jake Rattigan, B.A

Jake Rattigan, 2021 Cooper alumnus is currently a Fullbright Fellow, teaching English to students in Spain. His project was titled, "Effects of Conflicting Health-Related Information Exposure on Attentional Processing Speed: The Moderating Roles of Trait Anxiety and Openness."

Gabriela Rivera

Gabriela Rivera, 2021 Cooper alumna is currently a Lab Coordinator with the Rutgers ABUSA Lab and a Behavior Technician at Shape to Success. She is applying to Clinical Psychology PhD programs this year. Her Cooper project was titled, She submitted her paper, “Coping Through Comparative Gratitude: Expressing Gratitude in Comparison to Others as Emotion Regulation Amidst COVID-19-Related Stressors.”

IozoSzHb1lZE65Ka Maxine Shvachkin

Maxine Shvachkin, 2021 Cooper alumna is a Physical Therapy Aid/Patient Care Technician at a rehabilitation clinic. Her project was titled, "Brain Activity and Immune Functioning of Rats During Self-Administration of Fentanyl."

Screenshot 2022 09 30 121124 Olivia Worthington

Olivia Worthington, 2021 Cooper alumna, and School Psychology graduate. Olivia is pursuing an Education Specialist and Masters of Education degree at Temple University. Her Cooper project was titled, “Picture This: Perceptual Exaggeration of Threatening Visual Information as a Self-Control Strategy.”

Suhani Yerapathy

Suhani Yerapathy, 2021 Cooper alumna is a Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Psychoneuroimmunology Laboratory of Dr. Alex Kusnecov, Department of Psychology, Rutgers University. Her project was titled, "Cytokine Response to Fentanyl Self-Administration in Rats."

NickZPicture Nick Zambrotta

Nick Zambrotta, 2021 alumnus is a Rutgers psychology and Cooper Fellowship alumni who graduated in 2022. His project was titled, "Attributional Complexity and Perceptual Preferences."

Nick is currently attending Columbia University, where he is receiving a masters in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences. Following his masters at Columbia, Nick plans to get a PhD in Social Psychology, with research focuses in attribution, sexism and feminism, and social cognition.

2020 Alumni

2019 Alumni

2018 Alumni

Bushra Hasan

Bushra is a third-year medical student at the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and is currently completing her clinical rotations in New York. She will apply for a psychiatry residency in the 2024 Match, and her career intentions are to become a child and adolescent psychiatrist. Her areas of interest include social determinants of health, accessibility to mental health services, and cultural sensitivity in psychiatric practices.Her past work includes researching and conducting school-based mental health interventions for school districts in New Jersey, notably consulting for West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District. She was awarded the Cooper Research Fellowship in 2018, and her paper is titled “The Impact of Asian Status on the Relationship of Social-Emotional Competence and Mental Health in Early Adolescents.”

Emily Kadosh 2 Emily Kadosh

Emily Kadosh graduated with a Honor Research Scholar in Psychology distinction from Rutgers University in 2019 as a Psychology major and Cognitive Science minor. After graduation, Emily briefly worked at a staffing agency before transitioning to NBCUniversal as a Media Analyst where she developed consumer and category insights to support marketing opportunities based on audience delivery, consumption trends and consumer profiles. She is currently a Category Strategy Analyst at Mars Wrigley where she looks at how the confectionery category (candy industry) is performing using panel data, scan data, and consumer insights. She works with convenience store chains to optimize their confectionery assortment & merchandising and improve their confectionery strategy (for all candy, not just Mars products!).She was awarded the Cooper Research Scholarship in 2018, and her paper is titled, "Mapping -Isms: Creating a cognitive map of prejudice."

Siddarth Siddabathula

Siddarth Siddabathula, 2018 Cooper alumnus is a Clinical Information Manager at Emergency Medical Associates. His Cooper project was titled, “Shared Laziness: Recalling Joint Exercise Self-Control Failures.”

2017 Alumni

2016 Alumni

Amanda Autore

Amanda Autore, Cooper alumna 2016, 2017 graduate. Her project involved an extensive literature review of ERP responses during encoding and recognition of visual images and words, and development of a stimulus set for later experiments.

Screenshot 2022 10 04 161828

Alex Bachert, M.A., 2016 Cooper alumnus is currently a Corporate Recruiter, Prudential Financial. His project was titled, "Attentional Biases during an Emotional Stroop Task in Young Adults."

Mansi Joshi

Mansi Joshi, 2016 Copper alumna is a behavioral scientist who received her PhD in Social Psychology from Indiana University in 2022. In 2017, she graduated from Rutgers University with a bachelor's in Psychology with honors. During her time at Rutgers she collaborated across multiple labs investigating prejudice and person perception. Mansi's program of research examines 1) how people form impressions of STEM roles based on their group identity and 2) how these impressions predict their interest in pursuing STEM careers. Her work bridges social, organizational, and developmental perspectives to understand when and how beliefs are formed. Mansi is currently a senior research associate on the University Recruiting Syndicated research team at Veris Insights where she conducts research on how to help University Recruiters across Fortune 500 companies retain and engage top talent with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion.

Her project was titled, "Effect of Environmental Cues on Women in STEM."

Screenshot 2022 09 30 131820 Samuel Klein

Samuel Klein, 2016 Cooper alumnus, is currently a PhD student in Clinical Psychology at the University of Minnesota. His Cooper project was titled, “Self-Derived Goals: Exploring the Link Between Goal-Centrality and Self-Control.”

Screenshot 2022 09 30 132310 Caitlyn Smith

Caitlyn Smith, 2016 alumna received her MS degree in Occupational Therapy from Kean University in 2020 and is currently an Occupational Therapist with Atlantic Health System. Her Cooper project was titled, “The Influence of Temporal Linguistics on the Future-Oriented Intentions of Mandarin-English Bilinguals.”

2015 Alumni

2014 Alumni

Kuldeep Yadav, 2014 Cooper alumnus. Their project was titled, "Expression of Immediate-Early Gene Arc in Hippocampal Subfield CA2 Following Object-Place Learning."

Saif Rahman, M.D.

Saif Rahman, 2014 Cooper alumnus is a practicing physician resident, Summit, NJ. His project was titled, "Influence of Acute Mental Stress on Heart Rate Variability."

ST picture Solangel Troncoso

Solangel Troncoso graduated with honors from Rutgers University in 2015 as a Psychology and Women's & Gender Studies major. After graduation, she worked as a New Jersey SEEDs guidance officer to provide equitable college access to children from low-income households. She is currently a 4th year PhD candidate at the University of Michigan in the Personality and Social Contexts and Women's and Gender Studies Joint PhD program. She works primarily with Dr. Susan Gelman and is currently studying how use of gendered language reflects and shapes gender essentialist thinking.

Her 2014 Cooper title was, "Gender Ambiguity and Gender Essentialism: An Extension to the Social Categories Ambiguity Model (SCAM)."

Screenshot 2022 10 04 162224 Esha Vaid

Esha Vaid, 2014 and 2015 Cooper alumna is in her 5^th year of Penn State’s Child Clinical Psychology doctoral program. She is passionate about research that addresses issues of equity and social justice in the development and success of youth. Esha has been working with Dr. Martha Wadsworth in the Coping and Regulation of Environmental Stress Lab to explore mechanisms that drive disparate trajectories of mental and physical health, particularly for those faced with marginalization. Her master’s thesis examined how experiences of poverty-related stress and racial discrimination impact Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), and low-income youth’s mental health. She recently began to examine first-generation undergraduate student stress and the contributing stress that may alter paths of academic achievement and attainment. Her long-term goal is to continue supporting research that is devoted to promoting a more equitable trajectory for youth throughout development.

Her projects were titled, "Participation in the Arts as Potential Buffer for Test Scores in Low SES High Schools (2014)," and "Impact of School Climate and Bullying on Academic Achievement (2015)."