Brittany Zakszeski, recipient of International P.E.O. Scholar award, to speak at 80th Annual Convention of Pennsylvania P.E.O.
Brittany Zakszeski, a Ph.D. student in the school psychology program at Lehigh University’s College of Education, is one of 100 doctoral students in the United States and Canada selected in 2017 to receive a highly competitive $15,000 P.E.O. Scholar Award. She will speak on June 1 at the organization’s 80th annual Pennsylvania state convention at Seven Springs Mountain Resort, Seven Springs, PA. P.E.O. Chapter CN in Easton, Pennsylvania sponsored Ms. Zakszeski for this coveted award.
Brittany Zakszeski is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the school psychology program at Lehigh University. During her time at Lehigh, Brittany has worked in public, private, and alternative education settings in eastern Pennsylvania, most recently at Centennial School of Lehigh University. She became certified in the state of Pennsylvania as a school psychologist in 2016 and was hired as adjunct faculty by Lehigh in 2017. Brittany's research interests center on promoting students' resilience and understanding implementation science as it can be applied to educational settings, broadly, and to school practitioners' adoption and sustained use of evidence-based practices, more specifically. Her dissertation examined trajectories of self-regulation across the early elementary years and their relations with student and contextual factors. Brittany aspires to work in higher education where she can concurrently conduct research to enhance the practice of school psychology and train future generations of school psychologists.
When asked what impact this scholarship has had on her studies she explained. “Symbolically, receiving the P.E.O. Scholar Award reinforced for me that my area of study and line of research are important and meaningful. Logistically, this scholarship allowed me to focus full-time on my education as well as my scholarly and professional development without needing to supplement my income with employment outside my university; this, in turn, enabled me to pursue experiences that I would not have otherwise been able to seek due to limited time and/or financial resources.”
The P.E.O. Sisterhood, founded January 21, 1869, at Iowa Wesleyan College, Mount Pleasant, Iowa, is a philanthropic and educational organization interested in bringing to women increased opportunities for higher education. There are approximately 6,000 local chapters in the United States and Canada with nearly 240,000 active members. Chapter CN was organized in Easton in 2012.