Anudhi Munasinghe, a PBS graduate student in Prof. Diane Mackie’s lab, recently won the Grants-in-Aid (GIA) awarded by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). GIA supports scientific research in social problem areas related to the basic interests and goals of SPSSI.

The purpose of Anudhi’s awarded project is to contribute theoretically and practically to our understanding of underrepresented (UR) students’ academic performance. Despite increasing enrollment, several groups UR college students (e.g. Latinx students, Black students, first-generation students, etc.) perform less well in college than their peers. For her dissertation, Anudhi proposed the Student Fit in College Environments (S’FICE) model that identifies factors that hinder and improve UR students’ academic performance. In the awarded project, Anudhi will conduct the first empirical validation of the S’FICE model, by testing the causal role of the three components of psychological fit on increasing engagement with an academically relevant domain.