Darya (Dasha) Zabelina has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to support her research to better understand the motivational processes contributing to creativity or its lack. This work will contribute to educational practices conducive to creativity, a central goal to the foundation’s broader mission.

Zabelina is enrolled in the master’s program in experimental psychology, with James Council as her major adviser. The fellowship, which provides three years of support totaling $121,000, will begin this June.

An artist herself, Zabelina’s personal interest in creativity dates many years back. She became involved in creativity research as an undergraduate sophomore under the Advanced Undergraduate Research Award from the National Institutes of Health, Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Foundation. Her research interests primarily revolve around cognitive processes, affective processes, motivation and personality aspects involved in creativity and intelligence.