Honors senior Stacy Pancratz has been selected for a Fulbright fellowship to pursue research in Morocco next year. She will be following up on an independent study project on entrepreneurship that she did in Morocco during her junior year. "It's a funny story actually," she says. She received an envelope in the mail stuffed with forms and documents, but didn't realize for an entire week that an enclosed letter was informing her she had been selected for the Fulbright.
"During my time in Morocco, I will be researching the major challenges for entrepreneurs and whether Moukawalati, the government program designed to help them fund and plan their businesses, is fully addressing these challenges. I will be interviewing entrepreneurs, students and Moukawalati staff in the capital city of Rabat and a smaller city, Settat. I hope to uncover reasons why so few Moroccans have participated in the Moukawalati program, compared to projected program numbers," she says.
The Fulbright program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, is the nation's largest international program providing opportunities for students to pursue international graduate study, advanced research, or teaching in schools worldwide. Pancratz, a social policy major, learned about the program from meeting several U.S. students who were Fulbright fellows while she was in Morocco. "I really enjoyed my independent study project, so when I got back to Northwestern, I decided to apply for the Fulbright to expand my project for a whole year."
This year, Pancratz has been immersed in further research — but with a different focus — for her senior honors thesis, working with advisor Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, a professor of Human Development and Social Policy. Pancratz's quantitative research project is examining the variance in academic achievement of young children from low-income homes. "I am attempting to find family practices that promote the children's cognitive development and school success," she explains. "I hope to use the quantitative skills I've learned from my thesis next year in Morocco."
At the end of May she will present a poster of her thesis research findings at the Association for Psychological Science annual conference in San Francisco. Meanwhile she is participating in an intensive French language program in Montreal to prepare for her fellowship in Morocco, where business discussions and government documents are generally in French.
Pancratz's extracurricular activities at Northwestern include working as a research assistant for the Institute for Policy Research and volunteering with National Student Partnerships, an organization devoted to battling poverty.
Last Modified: 11/19/09