While at Lake Forest College, Parrott worked in Professor Robert Glassman’s psychology lab researching memory. She coded and analyzed the behavior of participants for experiments on memory for censored words and developed materials for experiments on temporal memory. She majored in psychology and Spanish, graduating with honors in 2009.

After completing her master’s degree last June, Parrott has continued researching spatial and auditory attention and perception at Northwestern’s Vision Plus Laboratories as a PhD student. She is also president of the Graduate Student Association, where she has instituted a new writing program that supports first and second year graduate students.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions. 

Fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $30,000 along with a $10,500 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees, opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.