Congratulations to EWU McNair Scholar Lizeth Bañuelos! In Spring 2021, Lizeth was selected to receive the Dean Jeffers W. Chertok Honored Student Award. This award is presented to exceptional students who have shown a commitment to their education by demonstrating outstanding academic achievement with a minimum of a 3.75 GPA in their previous four quarters and through leadership and service to the community.
Lizeth Bañuelos graduated from Eastern Washington University in 2021 with a major in Applied Developmental Psychology and two minors, one in Race and Culture Studies, the other in Chicana/o/x Studies. Her research interests surround the psychology of the Latinx community and discovering best practices for serving underserved populations. Lizeth completed an EWU McNair Summer Research Institute in the summer of 2020 under the mentorship of Dr. Aryn Ziehnert, Lecturer in the EWU Psychology Department. For this she focused on Latinx college students and their mental health in higher education institutions. She went on to collaborate with Dra. Christina Torres García in coordination with the Pell Institute and the Council for Opportunity in Education, to research first-generation, low-income students' challenges and obstacles during the COVID-19 and how this affects their college aspirations.
Lizeth was accepted into the Master's Program in Counseling at California State University Bakersfield, the Master's Program in Counseling at City University, and Master's Program in Counseling at Arizona State University, where she is now studying.