Student Spotlight

Congratulations to Debarati Kole on receiving this year’s Mark T. Suffolk Award for Outstanding Contributions to Developmental Science. Debarati is deserving of this award because she excels as a researcher, teacher, and practitioner of developmental science. She is enthusiastic about sharing knowledge with others and improving lives through her work.

This award is named in honor of doctoral student Mark Suffolk who passed away in 2016 before he could complete his degree, and is given annually to the advanced DS student who exemplifies traits such as intellectual curiosity, enthusiasm, compassion, and dedication to the field, similar to and in honor of the award’s namesake Mark.

Debarati is the final stages of the Developmental Science doctoral program and has grown tremendously in her time in the program. Debarati is persistent, compassionate, and forward-thinking and these qualities make her a successful burgeoning developmental scientist. Her research focuses on socioemotional processes of aging, in particular changes in social support across midlife and into older adulthood. Debarati is a leader amongst her peers – she is thoughtful, always willing to provide advice and guidance to others, and consistently ‘shows up’. Her contributions as a teacher are particularly noteworthy – having successfully taught 3 HDFS courses independently – with her students consistently expressing how she demonstrates passion for the material she teaches and care for her students through her teaching.

Debarati’s excellent contributions to and leadership within our program, community, and field of Developmental Science demonstrate her dedication and passion for the field.

Congratulations to Madisyn Shaffer on winning this year’s award for Outstanding Undergraduate Student in HDFS.

Madisyn has achieved a 4.0 GPA and will graduate this spring with a bachelor’s degree in HDFS and a minor in Psychology. She came to NDSU with extensive college-level coursework completed in high school. Madisyn’s faculty nominators wrote that even though she started upper-level courses immediately upon entering NDSU, they were impressed with her skill level in online and in-person settings. In her two years with us, she contributed meaningfully to all her courses and maintained an impressive academic record. We are happy to see that Madisyn is applying to Master’s programs in counseling, where we expect she will excel and represent HDFS well.