Dylan Richardson from San Francisco graduated with his bachelor’s degree in psychology at UC Merced in spring 2021 and continued in the Psychological Sciences Graduate Program in fall 2021.
Richardson works with Professor Elif Isbell in the I.D.E.A. Lab, researching how early experiences affect the development of cognitive control in children.
“My research focuses on how socioeconomic status (SES) is linked to the development of cognitive control in children,” he said. “I am specifically interested in exploring how SES relates to auditory attention and if there are potential beneficial factors in the classroom, such as teacher-child interactions.”
He is the first student in Psychological Sciences to receive the NSF-GRFP.
“Receiving an NSF graduate research fellowship means the world to me. I come from a lower-SES background and am a first-generation college student,” Richardson said. “I love the research I'm doing and hope to contribute towards minimizing socioeconomic disparities to reduce the academic achievement gap.”
