Alex Dopp, assistant professor of psychological science, has been named one of 10 finalists for a William T. Grant Foundation Scholars Award.

These highly competitive awards provide $350,000 in funding over a five-year period to support early career researchers in social, behavioral, and health sciences. Between four and six awards are distributed in a typical year. In addition to a rigorous research plan, each Scholars Award proposal must also include a detailed mentoring plan that is designed to provide emerging scholars with professional support for their work.

Dopp's proposal is focused on human-centered design, a field that grounds the design of innovations based on information about people who will ultimately use the innovation, and that offers tremendous potential for improving use of research evidence in the design and delivery of social services. Through the proposed research plan, Dopp, who is trained as a child clinical psychologist, will develop and test tools that leverage human-centered design to improve the use of research evidence in social services for rural youth. To assist his work, he will take classes in human-centered design at the University of Arkansas School of Art and engage with the local design community in Northwest Arkansas.

The official announcement of the finalists can be found at the Grant Foundation's website.