The Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) has awarded postdoctoral research fellow Steven W. Hemelt with its Post-doctoral New Scholars Award. The award, which includes a $2,000 grant, will allow Hemelt to conduct research on the impact of elementary school interventions on postsecondary attendance and degree completion. Hemelt accepted the award at the AEFP's annual conference March 15-17 in Boston.
"I am very humbled and honored to receive this award from AEFP," Hemelt said. "It demonstrates the organization's commitment to and investment in young researchers. Along with my colleague at Johns Hopkins University, Kimberly Roth, I am excited to see what this project uncovers and sanguine about a variety of future research work in partnership with the Center for Prevention and Early Intervention at JHU."
Hemelt, who received his PhD from the University of Maryland–Baltimore County in 2009, submitted his curriculum vitae and a detailed research proposal, which were reviewed by the AEFP's awards committee.
Hemelt and Roth's project would match baseline data on a group of first-grade students in the mid-1980s in Baltimore City Public Schools to detailed college-going information from the National Student Clearinghouse. The project would explore the long-run impacts of two randomized elementary school interventions—one curricular and one behavioral—on postsecondary attendance and degree completion. Another objective is investigating the ability of different types of short-run effects to predict observed long-run outcomes, e.g., college graduation.
The AEFP New Scholars Award Program is intended to support significant research by master's students, doctoral students, and recent graduates in elementary, secondary, and higher education finance and policy.