Franklin Research Fellowship

** Attention 3rd year Comparative Human Development majors**

Earl R. Franklin Research Summer Fellowship

As a senior in The College, Earl R. Franklin (AB, ’65) deliberated between law school and a graduate degree in psychology. He chose the former, but often looked back on his decision. “I always regretted not having a chance to dig deeper in psychology, and leave my mark at the University of Chicago in that field", he said. Established in 2006, the Earl R. Franklin Research Fellowship is Franklin’s way of leaving his mark. Franklin Fellowship recipients report that the support they receive from the Earl R. Franklin Research Fellowships has played an important role in shaping their interests and career plans. We thank Mr. Franklin for his generosity through the years.

The Franklin Research Fellowships are awarded to students in the Departments of Comparative Human Development and Psychology. Based strictly on merit, the fellowship provides each Franklin Fellow with up to $3,000 to pursue research that will lead to a senior honors project during their fourth year. The stipend is intended to cover summer expenses so that the student can work on research in anticipation of continuing this research as a senior honors B.A. thesis project in the fourth year.

Eligible students (CHD majors in their third year) can apply by submitting a 3-4 double-spaced page research proposal that explains the background for the research project, the specific aims of the research project, the proposed methods that will be used, and the significance and implications of the research. The application can be found here. Supporting materials to accompany the proposal should include:

A brief (1 page) personal statement covering career goals and interests that would be pursued after graduation, how the applicant’s course work has served in preparation of these goals, and a description of any relevant research, professional or personal experience related to the research proposed.
A detailed budget.
A copy of your curriculum vitae.
A letter of recommendation from your honors thesis adviser.

Selection of Earl Franklin Fellows will be based on: (1) an evaluation of the research proposal and personal statement, (2) the strength of the letter of recommendation, (3) overall GPA, and (4) grades and completed coursework in CHD. All application materials (excluding letter of recommendation) should be combined into one PDF and emailed to Ms. Janice Pavel by 11:59 pm Wednesday, May 15, 2024. The letter of recommendation should be emailed directly to Ms. Janice Pavel.

Note: Fellowship recipients cannot receive simultaneous support from other grants or sources unless such payment is approved by the Comparative Human Development’s Director of Undergraduate Studies.

For more information on Mr. Franklin, please see this announcement.

Award Recipients

2023-2024 Recipients
Andrea Urena-Tregillis
A comparative analysis of online discussions regarding exploitation in family vlogging and the Child Labor Crisis of migrant children

Sarah Kelso
Nonsensical conversations and children’s linguistic predictive abilities

Sophie Ennis
Resilience as a construct of productivity: How grieving students navigate college after loss

Harley Pomper
Non-grievable: Disabled politics in Cook County Jail

2022-2023 Recipients
Ariana Carrillo
Latin(x) LGBTQ+ Experiences with Healthcare

Haley Harris
A Competitive Dancer’s Edge: A critical analysis of the commercial competitive dance industry
and its influence on adolescent girls’ body image

Madeline Barnes
How The Elderly Comprehend Death

Anya Leslie Samtani
Choosing Dependence: How Emerging Adults Reconstruct Autonomy

2021-2022 Recipients
Jack Demchak
Vulnerability in Social Situations: Alterations of Interlocutor Facework at the University of Chicago

Bryan Gu
Acculturation and its Mechanism of Impact on Mental Health Service Engagement in Asian American Young Adults

Areeha Khalid
Internalized Stigma and the "Luxury of Being Understood": The Conceptualization of Mental Illness in Muslim Students at UChicago

Liana Massey
Let’s Conceptualize about Sex: The Relation between Emerging Adults’ Conceptualizations of Sex and their College Experiences

2020-2021 Recipients
Isobel Agolini
Abigail Hurtado
Elizabeth Shen
Alisha Nadkarni

2019-2020 Recipient
Lawrence Coldon
From Dependence to Independence: How the Transition to Becoming College Students Affects Parent-Child Relationships in Black Households

2018-2019 Recipients
Shruthi Basireddy
Rethinking the Label of Noncompliant in Type 2 Diabetes: Applying the Framework of Biological
Citizenship and the Role of Views of Self

Temisan Blagogee
"They checked me in as if I was an average white person": Racism and Other Detrimental Factors in Black American Women's Utilization of Prenatal Care

Ishani Kejriwal
40 Shades of Foundation: Colorism, Social Media, and the Cosmetics Industry

Nora Sullivan
Repurposed or Unpurposed? The Evolution of Chicago Public School Buildings Closed in 2013

Emily Tcheng
Diabetes is not a poor person's ailment": How Individuals on the South Side of Chicago Negotiate the Diabetes Care Experience

2017-2018 Recipients
Wyatt Bland
The Disembodied Self: Conceptions of Body and Self among Americans with Multiple Sclerosis

Alison Calentino
No Space to Breathe: Depression as a language of collective anxiety among Hong Kong young adults

Alexis Matthews
Embodying Ubuntu: Managing Substance Abuse in the Western Cape

Isabella Pan
Exploring How Peer Interactions Shape Mental Health Experience and Help-Seeking at the University of Chicago

Hallie Parten
Children of the Corn: Examining the meaning of adolescent employment in the American Midwest

Lauren Smith
Dietary Acculturation in Hispanic Immigrants: Is Latinx Progress being Stunted by Food Choices?

2016-2017 Recipients
Victoria Huang
The Morality of Heterosexual Nonviolent Pornography as Perceived by Undergraduate Women

Jill Lurie
Learning and Remembering in Dachau: Exploring the Paradoxes of Holocaust Education in Modern-day Germany

Spencer Moy
Negotiating Belonging Within Berlin's African Diaspora

Jasmine Ortega
Language, Literacy, and Liaisons: The Effects of an Intermediary Interpreter on Health Literacy and Outcomes

Jasmeen Randhawa
Discrimination, Ethnic Identity, and National Identity in Turbaned Sikh-Americans: A post-9/11 Analysis

Isabel Wellbery
Children Use the "Spirit of the Law" in Making Moral Judgments

2015-2016 Recipients
Andrew Ahn
21st Century Skills for Social Mobility: An Analysis of the Genesys Works Program

Joy Sobowale
Defying Integration: Nigerian Immigrant Parents’ Use of Cultural Repertoires to Transmit Nigerian Values to their Children

2014-2015 Recipients
Helen Ellsworth
Parental explanatory models of Autism Spectrum Disorder and the choice of Alternative and Complementary Medicine

Patricia Graf
Accommodating Stress: How students with psychological disabilities are shaped by their college cultures

Danielle Labotka
The Role of Multilingual Environments on the Development of Pragmatic Competence

Marlene Lorenz
Trait and State Math Anxiety in American Fifth Graders

Kayla Milne
When Diagrams Fail: The Impact of Modality Affordances on Science Learning

2013-2014 Recipients
Sherraine Ashley
In It for the Long Haul: An Exploration of the Framing of Commitment in Cohabiting Unions

Jessica Coon
Let's Do It Together: Spontaneous Negotiation with Children with own Syndrome in Moments of Misunderstanding

John Dulac
Liberation, (Pro)creation, Transformation: Discourses of HIV infection, abjection, and reproductive futurism among bugchasers in an online forum

Lily Lerer
Slowing Down Medicine: The Plural Worlds of Hospice Care

Nia Sotto
Discipline and Perfection: Pro-Anorexia and Dieting as Discourses of Biomedicalization

Roisleen Todd
Cross-Cultural Differences in the Directedness of Action Towards Infants: A Comparison Between U.S. and Mayan Communities

Ava Weiss
Writing Culture in the Reading Room: The Cultural Politics of Place and Space in a “Hispanic” Branch of the Chicago Public Library