Undergrad Sets Research Grant Record
School of Education and Social policy undergraduates Jordyn Ricard and Jared Zvonar received summer research grants from Northwestern University’s Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) for projects related to mental health and history, respectively.
Ricard’s OUR grant is her ninth and a University record, said Peter Civetta, director of the Office of Undergraduate Research. Overall, Ricard, a third-year with a human development and psychological services concentration, has acquired more than $25,000 in research grants.
Last summer record Ricard worked as a research assistant in the Suicide and Self-Injury Lab at Harvard University. She received funding for her work from the Leadership Alliance, which supports underrepresented minorities who aspire to be PhDs.
Ricard’s summer project builds on her previous work related to psychosis. A certified facial coder, she’s examining whether facial expressions are related to early life stress, such as abuse or witnessing violence in those who are high risk of developing a psychotic disorder.
Zvonar, who is studying learning and organizational change, history and political science, will use his grant to work on his honors thesis in history. He plans to travel to the National Archives in Washington D.C. and the Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa to research War Plan Red--the American plan to invade Canada after World War I--and Defence Scheme No. 1--the Canadian plan to invade the U.S. in the same time period.
Through his research, he will connect the larger social and political forces and individual actors within the American and Canadian governments.
One of fourteen Northwestern undergraduates awarded a Leopold Fellowship in historical studies, Zvonar has worked as a research assistant for the last year and a half. The summer grant is his second; in 2017, he was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Grant to study and create a podcast about paranormal folklore in the American Northeast.