Elizabeth Marsh, a senior student in the Department of Psychology, is the recipient of the Laura Berk Undergraduate Writing Award.

Marsh was born in Naperville, Illinois, but ended up graduating high school in Melbourne, Australia, after her family moved around a lot.

Knowing she wanted to study psychology, Marsh chose ISU because of the great faculty and opportunity for out-of-class learning. The Gamma Phi Circus, being her other passion, also helped influence her decision.

Marsh will be a graduate student in the Cognitive & Behavioral Sciences sequence within the Department of Psychology, beginning this fall. Her research interests include memory, attention, emotion regulation, and perfectionism.

Upon completion of her graduate degree, Marsh plans to pursue a Ph.D. and go on to have a career in research and academia.

The Laura Berk Undergraduate Writing Award is named after Dr. Laura Berk who is a distinguished professor emerita in the Department of Psychology at Illinois State. She is a nationally known researcher, teacher, and textbook author focusing on early childhood development. She established this award upon her retirement to honor exceptional writers from the department.