text: The Community Engaged Lab A Case Study Introduction for Developmental Science Due to the closing of campuses museums and other public spaces during the pandemic the typical avenues for recruitment partnership and dissemination are now unavailable to developmental labs In this paper we show how a shift in perspective has impacted our labs ability to successfully transition to virtual work during the COVID 19 shut down This begins by recognizing that any lab that relies on local communities to engage in human research is i itself a community organization i From this we introduce a i community engaged lab i model and explain how it works using our own activities during the pandemic as an example To begin we introduce the vocabulary of mission driven community organizations and show how we applied the key ideas of mission vision and culture to discussions of our own labs identity We contrast the community engaged lab model with a traditional bi directional model of recruitment i from i and dissemination i to i communities and describe how the community engaged model can be used to reframe these and other ordinary lab activities Our activities during the pandemic serve as a case study we formed new community partnerships engaged with child citizen scientists in online research and opened new avenues of virtual programming One year later we see modest but quantifiable impact of this approach a return to pre pandemic diversity in our samples new engagement opportunities for trainees and new sustainable partnerships We end by discussing the promise and limitations of the community engaged lab model for the future of developmental research 