Michael E. Martinez Prize for Outstanding Research and Service: Sabrina Solanki

At the UCI School of Education's 2019 Doctoral Student Recognition Ceremony, Associate Professor Stephanie Reich introduced the Michael E. Martinez Prize for Outstanding Research and Service.

Text of Remarks

In 2013, the School established the Michael E. Martinez Prize for Outstanding Research and Service. This annual award commemorates the scholarly and professional achievements of the late Michael E. Martinez, Professor of Education at the University of California, Irvine, from 1992 through 2012 - "Michael E. Martinez - A Lifetime of Service."  As a scholar, Professor Martinez is remembered for his significant contributions to our understandings of cognitive processes and the malleability of intelligence, and how these understandings could be applied to student learning. He is also remembered for the kindness and collegiality that he embodied. In his honor, this award is given to a doctoral student who demonstrates superior scholarship, intellectual curiosity, and high levels of professionalism, service and collaboration with fellow students and/or faculty. 

I’d like to invite Mrs. Stephanie Martinez to come forward to present the award to this year’s honorees.

​This year’s first Michael E. Martinez Prize for Outstanding Educational Research and Service goes to Sabrina Solanki.

Sabrina is a fifth year PhD student in the Educational Policy & Social Context specialization area who will be defending her dissertation in July, 2019. 

Sabrina’s research concerns issues in higher education, focusing particularly on identifying effective strategies for improving college progress and success among at-risk populations and historically underrepresented groups. Her work has been published in top-ranked education and education policy journals, including the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, Plos One, and The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, and she currently has two papers being revised. This is an exceptional record for a soon-to-be PhD, not just in the volume of work but also in the quality of the scholarship. 

It is not surprising, given the important work she does on educational research, she was selected as one of the recipients of the highly prestigious Spencer Dissertation Fellowship in 2018. This Fellowship supports “the most talented researchers conducting dissertation research related to education.”
 
In addition, consistent with the ideals exemplified by Professor Martinez, Sabrina has been very supportive of fellow students in providing guidance in formulating research questions, designing analyses, and working through the details of statistical coding and empirical models. She is enthusiastic about her work, she is generous with her time and ideas, she is relentlessly upbeat, and she is known in EPSC as being one of the most dedicated and available mentors for junior students. 

Sabrina Solanki & Mrs. Michael Martinez