Research is an essential part of the academic experience at MSP. Students are encouraged to join one of many faculty/student research teams; research is also a core aspect of our academic curriculum. Below, Mackenzie Glaros (PsyD 3) talks about how the pandemic impacted last year’s research experience.
The COVID-19 pandemic upended the psychological conferences for the 2019-2020 season.
Many conferences had to cancel, due to lack of time to prepare for an online platform, which also meant students, faculty, and professionals were unable to present the research projects and posters.
However, some conferences were able to move forward with a virtual conference with pretty good success. Many people stated that they were happy to save the money that would have been spent on travel and hotels but were still able to attend and learn from conference presentations.
Even with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, MSP faculty and students continued to collaborate and conduct research projects. This is evident in the recently released 2019/20 MSP Annual Research Report. This report is a summative overview of the research conducted by all of the individual researchers and research teams at MSP. The report details all MSP affiliated publications, conference presentations, community presentations, and defended dissertations from the 2019/20 academic year (September 2019 through August 2020).
Looking to the future, it appears that COVID-19 will also affect the 2021 conference season with most already planning on being held virtually or with the option to attend to virtually, such as the Annual APA Convention.
I personally would encourage faculty and students to submit proposals to APA (Division Programs are due January 12, 2021), particularly because travel to San Diego is no longer required. Although the conference landscape has certainly changed, research is still being conducted and progress is still being made in our field.
Mackenzie Glaros (PsyD 3) is MSP’s Research Graduate Assistant.
