The Strumpf Scholar Award recognizes outstanding performance and facilitates graduate studies in the area of children, youth, and families. This award provides the selected students with two years of support. Support covers summer wages, to allow students to focus fully on their research during the summer, and an additional $1,000 each year to support research-related costs. ($4500 for each of two years, $9000 total for each scholar).
We are happy to announce two Strumpf scholars for 2012: Meghan Scrimgeour, a Developmental Psychology graduate student, and Helen Tam, a Child Clinical Psychology graduate student.
Meghan Scrimgeour’s research examines the development of preschoolers’ prosocial behavior within the context of the family. Although some research has examined the role of mothers in the development of prosocial behavior, little research has examined this in the context of the family, while looking at the temperamental characteristics of the child. Further, Meghan, in addition to using observations and questionnaires to assess children’s temperament, also assesses temperament using psychophysiological measures, which is innovative for this area of study. In the past year, Meghan has presented findings that she converted into a manuscript that has been submitted for publication. This is actually the third manuscript that Meghan has submitted this past academic year, with one of those receiving a revise /resubmit review that she will edit and re-submit this summer. We were impressed with her productivity this past year and expect even more in 2012-2013 now that she has received summer funding and research funds via Strumpf Scholar.
Helen Tam has a similar story. Helen came to Penn State with a masters in Physiological Science. She has taken that knowledge and applied it to her study of how the differing ways children learn help to explain some of the struggles we see in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) during the acquisition of new skills. Her background in Physiological Science aids her in collecting autonomic nervous system data to describe differences in learning among children with and without ADHD. She has an innovative plan of research that will move the field of research in ADHD forward through findings that can improve programs for children with attention and learning problems. Additionally, she is working on a manuscript that will be submitted this summer, and more are expected in the upcoming year.
Please join us in congratulating these two exceptional students!