Ed Psych student earns doctoral fellowship from Buffett Institute

12 Sep 2016    

Amanda Moen, a CEHS doctoral student in Educational Psychology and the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools, has been awarded a one-year fellowship grant from the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska.

The Buffett Early Childhood Institute Graduate Scholars program provides financial support and mentoring for advanced students and is designed to foster the growth of diverse, exceptional graduate students conducting research about young children and their families. The program is the first financial support program for doctoral students who have reached Ph.D. candidacy at the University of Nebraska that focuses on young children and their development.

Jon Cavanaugh, a graduate student at the University of Nebraska Omaha, and Abbey Gregg, from the University of Nebraska Medical Center were also awarded fellowships.

“We are tremendously excited to recognize and support the research efforts of these three doctoral students who are drawing on multiple fields to study issues important to young children and their families,” said Samuel J. Meisels, founding executive director of the Buffett Institute. “We also applaud the efforts of their faculty mentors who provide critical support and help make possible a deeper level of inquiry and research.”

Moen’s research will contribute a valid and psychometrically sound measure for assessing and supporting family-school partnerships to the field. The importance of family-school and parent-teacher partnerships is essential for supporting children's development and learning. Moen is from Frisco, Texas.

The Buffett Institute Graduate Scholars program is intended to reach across traditional higher education boundaries, supporting high-quality research from diverse fields that impact young children, including health, education, social work, music, art, the neurosciences, and others. Multidisciplinary research and practice—particularly from disciplines not typically associated with the field of early childhood education—and new methodologies are encouraged.

Scholars work with their faculty mentors on a dissertation that represents an in-depth exploration of early childhood issues. The Buffett Institute facilitates the creation of opportunities for graduate students and mentors to communicate, network, and collaborate with one another.