James L. Huff, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Dr. James Huff is a qualitative researcher whose work is at the nexus of engineering education research and applied personality and social psychology. An NSF CAREER Awardee, he is committed to fostering care as a central mindset of engineering and other professions through his in-depth examinations of personal lived experiences of identity and emotion, facets often hidden within professional domains. Additionally, he builds a culture of care in the BPI lab itself. Learn more about our mentoring philosophy, our research projects, and our publications.
Mentoring Philosophy
Dr. James Huff mentors members of the BPI lab to generate fresh and grounded insights into individual experiences related to individuals' identities or identity-relevant phenomena. He mentors undergraduate students over the span of two to three years so that they may generate important insights into identity experiences. They complete their studies using interpretative phenomenological analysis, an in-depth qualitative research method used to generate psychological insights into personal lived experiences. Their findings often result in an honors thesis that is also presented at national conferences and submitted to academic journals. BPI members are also funded as undergraduate research assistants to contribute to Dr. Huff's funded research projects.
While many BPI members have gone on to Ph.D. or other research-focused graduate programs with full funding, others have pursued important work in addressing social problems. What unites the entire BPI lab is an insatiable curiosity about the lived experiences of individuals and a courageous commitment to enact justice and well-being through care for individuals in and out of professional contexts.
