The HR Science Team is a student-led research team at Appalachian State University. The team is made up of undergraduate and graduate students who have an interest in industrial-organizational psychology, human resources, and data analytics. HR Science consists of three sub-teams that each focus on individual research projects including safety, evidence-based practices, and organizational cultural insights. These projects are then presented at conferences such as the River City Industrial-Organizational Conference (RCIO), the Blacks in Industrial-Organizational Psychology Conference (BIOP), and the Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology Conference (SIOP).

Our research team is able to get some funding to attend educational and professional conferences, but these funds are limited. Team members have to use a combination of funding sources in very specific ways in order to sufficiently cover costs. Even still, reimbursement from funding sources is not guaranteed and can take months to process, which is the issue we are faced with now. The current goal of this fundraiser is to cover the cost of each member’s registration fee for RCIO. Many of our team members work full-time, part-time, or multiple jobs while being full-time students. We would like to avoid having them pay out of pocket in order to attend valuable opportunities for professional growth such as this one as much as we can.

For these reasons, we call upon a generous network of individuals who support our team’s mission: "We believe that people from all backgrounds should be provided the opportunity to learn and work in an environment conducive to their personal and professional growth”. Thank you for reading about our team of talented students!