Two Department of Educational Psychology students—Alyssa Merbler, a special education PhD student, and Nicolaas VanMeerten, psychological foundations of education PhD student—have been awarded Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships (DDFs) by the University of Minnesota’s Graduate School.

DDFs give the University’s most accomplished PhD candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year.

Alyssa’s dissertation will seek to validate movement-based sleep assessments in cerebral palsy. Her adviser is Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Policy Frank Symons.

In his dissertation, Nicolaas will examine game-based solutions to the lack of training and assessment opportunities for spatial reasoning. His primary adviser is Associate Professor and Associate Vice Provost, for the Office of Equity and Diversity Keisha Varma.

Congratulations to Alyssa and Nicolaas on their great achievements!