We use data and insights from psychology and behavioral economics to understand how different groups experience student success, thriving, and a sense of belonging at Carnegie Mellon University.
Our Mission
The mission of the Data-Driven Diversity Lab (D3 Lab) is reflected in its name: using data to understand and improve how different groups experience student success, thriving, and sense of belonging at Carnegie Mellon University. Our lab studies how underrepresented or marginalized groups fare as students in terms of well-being, academic performance, and perceptions of support and belonging. The D3 Lab has three goals:
Our first goal is to identify and understand the experiences of students from a diverse set of backgrounds on campus and analyze existing institutional data to identify areas for improvement.
Using these insights, our second goal is to design and implement theory-driven interventions to improve student outcomes and to deploy these interventions as applied research projects.
Our third goal is to rigorously evaluate the efficacy of these interventions and use our analyses to guide theoretical developments in our understanding of how people thrive and succeed.
Projects
Our projects range from testing theoretical ideas in online experiments to multi-yearlong randomized control trials. The common thread is that this research uncovers valuable insights that lead to beneficial outcomes for students.
People
The D3 Lab team is a unique combination of researchers and university leadership. Faculty members, post-graduate researchers, and graduate and undergraduate students from social psychology, behavioral economics, human-computer interaction, and organizational behavior make up an interdisciplinary research team. University administrators help bring these ideas to life within the Carnegie Mellon campus and beyond.
Join the Lab
Each Fall semester, we review applications from eligible CMU undergraduate students to join D3 as research assistants for credit. As an RA, students will gain training in experimental methods and design, data analysis, scientific writing and presentation skills are designed to complement coursework in social psychology and behavioral decision making.
Our work has been published in top-ranked journals like Psychological Science, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and American Economic Review, as well as popular press outlets like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BBC.
Press
Get Involved
Interested in joining our team or learning more about our work? Get in touch!