Women's and Gender Studies

Amir Robertson, from Milan, New Hampshire will graduate in May 2024 with a bachelor of arts degree in Psychology and Women and Gender Studies. He is also part of the Honors in Major program. Amir did his project with the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) through the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research and plans to expand on his experience in his honors thesis. Amir initiated this project because of his interest in gender perception and expression and it also happened to be a perfect combination of both his majors. His interest in emotion research was also influenced by his work with the Affect and Social Psychophysiology (ASP) Lab under his mentor, Dr. Jolie Wormwood. Through this experience, Amir discovered how to make data more understandable, to manage his time better, to ask for help often, and that research doesn’t always have to be complex to be meaningful. He enjoyed seeing the different facial expressions and how the visible emotion varied from person to person, but the project became more difficult when coding to collect the face rating data. Despite the struggle, he still learned a lot in the process. Amir’s passion for this project motivated him to submit to Inquiry to share his experience and, in doing so, hopes that it will provide more insight in his field. Following graduation, he hopes to get his PhD in social psychology and continue doing research to spread more awareness about underrepresented groups and individuals in his field. He is determined to broaden the scope of subject pools so that psychology better represents the truth of humanity.