Research Assistant – Learning and experimental economics projects (LEEPS) Lab

February 2025 – Janurary 2026

Running high-quality economic experiments requires more than just a research question. It takes careful setup, reliable facilitation, and a team that can actually execute under pressure. As one of the only undergraduates to work directly with Professor Kristian López Vargas since he became director of the LEEPS Lab, I contributed across a few different fronts. I facilitated in-person economic experiments with 8–16 paid participants across multi-hour sessions using oTree, studying price formation and trading behavior in continuous double auction markets. I also led a team of three undergraduates on a project examining how AI-mediated persuasion affects prosocial decision-making in dictator game settings, managing weekly meetings and synthesizing our literature review into a structured research foundation. And when course materials for ECON 165 existed only in another language, I translated and rebuilt them into LaTeX lecture slides so students could actually access them. That last contribution led directly to being invited back to support the course as Group Tutor and Instruction Aid the following year in Spring 2026, which felt like a real full-circle moment!

Leeps Lab Website: https://leeps.ucsc.edu/

Spring 2025 - ECON165 Class