Resume template · Updated October 2026
Research assistant resume template
Short answer
Meridian suits a research assistant: skill rows for methods and software print above the jobs, and a projects section gives your thesis its own space before education. The fictional sample is a full-time research assistant in a university child development lab, recruiting families, running eye-tracking sessions and cleaning data in R, after two years as an undergraduate assistant. She is aiming for lab coordinator posts and doctoral programs.
Download the research assistant sample
Elif is a fictional research assistant. Replace every detail with your own before you send it.
The files are made in your browser by Resumity's own exporters, from this sample. The builder opens it as your own resume: click any line to replace it. Free plan, no watermark.
Why Meridian suits a research assistant resume
Meridian prints summary, skills, experience, projects and then education, so the methods and software a principal investigator screens for come first, and an honors thesis or independent study sits in its own projects section rather than buried in a job. The plain, colourless layout looks at home in an academic application.
Second choice: Henrietta. Henrietta prints education straight after the jobs; better if a recent degree with strong grades is your main selling point.
What goes in each section, in Meridian's order
Meridian prints its sections in a fixed order, the same in the PDF and the Word file. Here is that order for this sample, and what to put in each section.
- Professional Summary. Field and population (children, older adults, patients, mice, cell lines), the stages you handle (recruitment, data collection, coding, analysis) and the role you want next. Two or three sentences are enough.
- Skills. Technical for methods (recruitment, protocol sessions, eye tracking, assays, coding schemes, statistics); Tools for R, SPSS, Qualtrics, REDCap and lab equipment; Soft Skills for work with participants and training students. Add languages if you run sessions in them.
- Work Experience. Count sessions run, participants recruited, hours of video coded or samples processed. Separate what you designed from what you carried out to someone else's protocol; principal investigators value both, but they need to know which is which.
- Projects. Your thesis or independent study: question, sample size, method and what came of it (poster, talk, shared code). This is where you show you can think through a study, not only run one.
- Education. Degree, school and year, with minors, honors or a statistics sequence on the detail line. Include GPA only if a posting asks or it is strong.
- Certifications. Human subjects or animal research training your institution required, with the course name and year, plus any lab safety training.
The sample resume as text
The same content as the files above, so you can copy a line or compare it with your own.
Elif Demir
Research Assistant, Developmental Psychology
Ann Arbor, MI | elif.demir@example.com | (734) 555-0186 | osf.io/sample-elif-demir
Research assistant with two years running behavioral and eye-tracking studies with young children and their families. Recruits and schedules participants, runs sessions to protocol, codes video and cleans data in R, and keeps IRB paperwork current. Looking for lab coordinator posts and doctoral programs in developmental psychology.
Experience
Research Assistant (Full-Time), Huron Valley University, Child Cognition Lab, Ann Arbor, MI (07/2024 to Present)
- Recruit and schedule about 25 families a month from the participant database and community events, keeping three studies on their enrollment targets.
- Run eye-tracking and behavioral sessions with children aged 2 to 6 to written protocols, about 300 sessions so far.
- Clean and merge eye-tracking and survey data in R with scripted steps the lab now reuses across studies.
- Prepare IRB amendments and continuing reviews and keep consent records ready for audit.
- Train and schedule eight undergraduate assistants each semester.
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Lakeshore College Memory Lab, Grand Rapids, MI (09/2022 to 05/2024)
- Coded about 400 hours of video for attention measures, keeping agreement with a second coder above a kappa of 0.85.
- Ran about 150 adult participants through a computer-based memory task.
Projects
Honors thesis: nap timing and word learning in preschoolers: Independent study with 42 children at two childcare centres, analysed with mixed-effects models in R.
- Presented a poster at a regional developmental psychology conference
- Shared the analysis code and data dictionary on OSF
Education
BA, Psychology, Lakeshore College (05/2024). Minor in statistics; honors in psychology
Certifications
- Human Subjects Research (Social-Behavioral-Educational), CITI Program (2024)
Skills
Participant recruitment, Protocol-driven data collection, Eye tracking, Video coding, Data cleaning, Mixed-effects models, R and RStudio, Qualtrics, REDCap, SPSS, Working with children and families, Training undergraduates, English, Turkish
How to make the sample yours
Name the population and setting
Children and families, inpatients, older adults, online panels, rodents, cell cultures. Labs hire assistants who already know how to work with their kind of participant or sample.
Count the work
Sessions run, families recruited, hours coded, samples extracted. Numbers show reliability, which is what a principal investigator worries about most when hiring.
Show reproducible habits
Scripts instead of hand edits, data dictionaries, version control, shared code. Mention them; they mark you as someone ready for graduate-level work.
Put the thesis in projects
Give it a one-line description and two highlights. A poster or a talk counts, even at a student conference.
Aim the summary at the next step
Lab coordinator, research associate, doctoral program or industry research. Change the last sentence of the summary for each application.
Keywords to keep where they are true
Terms this kind of resume is usually searched for. Use the posting's exact wording, and only for work you have done.
- research assistant
- participant recruitment
- data collection
- research protocol
- IRB
- informed consent
- data cleaning
- R
- SPSS
- Qualtrics
- REDCap
- literature review
- video coding
- inter-rater reliability
- poster presentation
Mistakes to avoid
- "Assisted with research" with no method, population or count.
- Claiming you designed a study when you ran sessions to the PI's protocol.
- Listing every course you took instead of the methods and statistics you can use.
- Leaving out human subjects training that the next lab will ask about.
How the sample PDF reads in text extractors
We exported this sample with Resumity's PDF exporter in Chrome on 2026-10-29 and read the file back with three open-source text extractors. This shows whether software that turns a PDF into text can recover it; it is not a test of any commercial applicant tracking system. How we test templates.
| Extractor | Name, email, phone | Headings | Bullets intact |
|---|---|---|---|
| pdf.js 4.10.38 | All found | 6 of 6 | 9 of 9 |
| pdftotext (Xpdf) 4.00 | All found | 6 of 6 | 9 of 9 |
| pypdf 6.13.0 | All found | 6 of 6 | 9 of 9 |
Frequently asked questions
Should a research assistant resume include GPA and coursework?
Coursework only where it adds methods: statistics, research design, programming. GPA only if it is strong or the posting asks. A year into a full-time research job, both shrink to a line.
How do I show I can design research, not only run it?
Use a projects entry for the study you designed yourself, usually a thesis or independent study, with the question, sample, method and outcome. Keep job bullets honest about whose protocol you followed.
Do I need a CV instead of a resume for graduate school?
Many doctoral programs ask for a CV, which adds full publication, presentation and teaching lists. This resume converts easily: keep the same entries and expand the projects into presentations and papers.
How do I list human subjects training?
Give the course name, the provider and the year in certifications, and mention IRB work in your bullets: amendments drafted, consent processes run, records kept.
What if my research experience is in a wet lab?
Keep the structure and swap the evidence: techniques (PCR, cell culture, microscopy), samples processed, equipment maintained, protocols written. Name the organisms or sample types you handle.
Will applicant tracking systems read this Meridian PDF?
The sample PDF read back with its contact details, all 6 section headings and all 9 bullets intact in three open-source text extractors (pdf.js, pdftotext and pypdf). Commercial systems such as Workday, Greenhouse or Taleo were not tested, and each employer configures its own.
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