How to Volunteer
If you live in the Greater Waltham/Boston, Massachusetts area and are a healthy adult over the age of 65, you may be interested in participating in our research.
Email our lab to sign up as a volunteer!
If you live in the Greater Waltham/Boston, Massachusetts area and are a healthy adult over the age of 65, you may be interested in participating in our research.
Email our lab to sign up as a volunteer!
If you are interested in volunteering, the first step is call the lab (781-736-3273). When you call, we ask you to complete a brief telephone survey. It takes less than 5 minutes. The first part of the survey covers your educational and background and how you spend your time. The second part is a brief health survey. This is also a good time to ask us any questions that you might have about volunteering or our research.
We will give you a call back in a weeks or so to schedule a time that is convenient for you to come in. However, depending upon the number of research projects going on in our lab, the time could vary from a week or two to a several months. When we call you, we will let you know what the current project involves and how long you would need to come in for (usually an hour or two hours.) If the project interests you, we schedule a time that is convenient for you. You just come in that one time. This is not a project that requires you to keep coming back for weeks or months.
The telephone survey only takes about 5 minutes, and the tasks that you complete when you come into the lab take between an hour and two hours. If we call and you don't have any free time right then, we can call back at another time that is convenient for you. After you volunteer that one time, that's all there is to it. Many people are reluctant to volunteer because they think that it might take up too much time. Here you can choose how much or how little time you would like to come in for. If you only have two hours of your time to give us, that's terrific. If you have more, that's great too. If you are interested in volunteering again you can let us know and we will call you the next time a project starts up and we need volunteers.
We have several different projects going on right now, so it depends on the project for which you are called. All of our projects are researching memory. For the most part, memory and language. Here are a few examples of the tasks that you might be asked to do:
You will have an opportunity to learn about human memory and cognition, as well as make a valuable contribution to science. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to call us.