Current Researchers Section

For this section, you are asked to describe the work of 3 current researchers in the discipline. While it is important to know the historical figures and theorists, our disciplines are living ones and new scholarship is constantly being released as journal articles, scholarly books, or popular books.

We want you to be familiar with some of this research. You will have a quick response to those people you meet who ask you about what is going on in the discipline. You could approach this as a way of describing to others your Psychology or Sociology "summer reads". Our disciplines have so many interesting publications. Being able to reference these and speak to these gives others an impression that you are engaged in the current projects in your discipline.

Be sure to add citations of their work in the reference section. You should cite several of their publications so that you can convey patterns of their areas and interest areas. Remember this section is more about the researcher than describing one research study. Present the "Big Picture" of the contributions of this researcher. If you don't know who to pick, I encourage you to focus on the key speakers for the major conventions, e.g., APA, APS, or ASA. Once you have a name, search out their personal website for a Curriculum Vitae (academic webpage). For example, cognitive psychologist Robert (Bob) Bjork received an award in May 2016 for his work given by the Association for Psychological Science (APS). I bet you can get the big picture from that page and the links."

A reference in APA is needed with links to where the information was obtained