📣The MOSAIC Lab is excited to announce that Sarah and Teresa will be presenting their posters at SPSP 2026 in Chicago! The annual convention will be held on Feb 26-28th. Be sure to attend their posters!👩‍🏫

Undergraduate RA spotlight! ✨ Bryana is a junior, double majoring in Clinical/Community Psychology and Spanish with a minor in Adult Development. Bryana hopes to attend graduate school and obtain a PhD in clinical psychology!

Undergraduate RA spotlight! Miranda is a senior majoring in Clinical-Community Psychology with a double minor in Criminology and Social Work. After undergrad, Miranda plans to go to graduate school to obtain a doctorate in Forensic Psychology!

Undergraduate RA Spotlight! ✨ Isabella is a senior majoring in Psychology (with a concentration in Clinical-Community) and minoring in Latino/a Studies. She is interested in topics like nature vs. nurture, attachment styles, relationships, and the development of children’s personalities.

Congratulations to Dr. Straka and her fellow team members for winning the SPSP Award for Distinguished Service to the Society! 🎊 🎉 The Equity and Antiracism Task Force and Its Descendants created a mentoring toolkit to reduce racism in mentorship. More information here: spsp.org/about/divers...

New undergraduate RA spotlight! Lauren is a senior majoring in Developmental Psychology and minoring in Criminology, Law, & Society. She is exploring various interests in identity formation, group behavior, ethics and morality, forensic osteology, and criminology.

New undergraduate RA spotlight! NyJae is a junior majoring in Intradisciplinary Psychology. She is interested in how concepts like stereotype threat and pluralistic ignorance shape minority experiences and contribute to disparities in education, work, and daily life.

Welcome back to campus! As we finish off the first week of school, we would like to introduce our new lab manager, Teresa! Her research interest focuses on the discriminatory experiences of queers of color and how their intersecting identities shape how they navigate such discrimination.

A glimpse of Dr. Straka’s talk at the 2025 New England Future Faculty Workshop! This was a virtual conference to help postdoctoral fellows and later-stage graduate students prepare for a faculty position in STEM, Health Sciences, and Social Sciences and Humanities.

It's time to say goodbye to our two amazing team members, Sherlock and Isabela. Sherlock will be starting her PhD at the University of Michigan and Isabela will be starting her PhD at The Ohio State University! Congratulations again to the both of you! 🎉

Summer 2025 Lab Outing 😎 Took a short break from the heat with Jarling’s! 🍦

Happy Graduation! 🎊 Huge congratulations to Heaven who will be continuing her academic journey this fall at the University of Illinois in Chicago pursuing a Master's in Social Work! Heaven was one of the first members of our team and we will surely miss her! ❤️

New paper alert! 🚨 With our collaborators at Duke, this article reviews the structure, availability, and quality of peer mental health support programs available across different U.S. college and universities. pubmed-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/40659550/

More post graduation news! 🥳Congratulations to Sherlock continuing her academic career in the PhD program in Personality and Social Context Psychology at the University of Michigan this fall! Sherlock was integral to building the MOSAIC lab and we are so excited to follow her academic journey! 🌟

Post Graduation Announcement! 👩‍🎓Huge congratulations to Isabela who will be continuing her academic journey this fall at The Ohio State University pursuing a PhD in Social Psychology ✨ Isabela has been with the MOSAIC lab since the start and she is now off to do more amazing work! #psychology

Congratulations to our incredible students who graduated last weekend! Sherlock graduated from the MSPS program and Seniors Heaven, Teresa, Lilian, Abir, and Isabella all graduated with honors! 🥳 💙🧡

🎉 Happy last week of instruction! Spring 2025 has been a busy semester for MOSAIC Lab, wrapped up beautifully with Senior Student Research Fair and our graduate students’ Creative Research Zine! We’re proud of all the hard work that went into this semester-can’t wait to share more cool science!

🎉 Congratulations to Bryana for being accepted into the TRIO McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program! She will continue working with Dr. Brenda Straka on her independent project, “Exploring Social Exclusion Among Students from Low SES Backgrounds.” 👏✨ #uiuc #socialpsych #uiucmosaiclab

🎉 Big congratulations to our Capstone students for completing their theses and presenting their work at the Undergraduate Research Symposium! Your year-long dedication and hard work have officially come to a close, and we couldn’t be prouder of all you’ve accomplished. 💫👏 #uiuc #socialpsychology

Welcome to the MOSAIC Lab, Sarah O! 🌟 Sarah is a first-year Ph.D. student in Social Psychology at UIUC. She earned her M.A. in Educational Measurement & Statistics and her B.S. in Psychology, with a certificate in Resilience and Trauma-Informed Perspectives, from the University of Iowa.

@uiucmosaiclab.bsky.social took over #MPA25 this year! So proud of these incredible students 🤩

MOSAIC Lab took over #MPA25 this past weekend! Lilian, Teresa, Abir, and Isabela all presented their Capstone projects they have been working on over this past year, amazing!

🎉 Big congratulations to our graduate student, Sherlock Liu, for receiving the 2025 MPA Diversity Travel Award! MOSAIC Lab is excited to be part of MPA—don’t miss presentations from incredible PI, graduate student, and undergraduate researchers! Come support and celebrate all the amazing work!

Hello and welcome to the MOSAIC Lab! 👋 We're here to explore the experiences of historically underrepresented populations regarding belonging, social exclusion, and group-based social identities. Follow us on this journey of discovery! More info on our lab website: publish.illinois.edu/mosaic-lab/