Congratulations to PhD student Anna Ko on her selection as a 2025 Grand Challenges for Social Work (GCSW) Doctoral Fellow! Awards are presented in connection with each of the 13 Grand Challenges for Social Work. Anna has been awarded a GCSW Doctoral Fellowship in connection with the Grand Challenge to reduce extreme economic inequality. Her research project is titled, “Buffering Against Economic Shocks: The Role of UI in Promoting Equity in Parental Investments and Child Development.”
“This project aims to explore how Unemployment Insurance (UI) shapes the ways parents spend time and resources on their children, highlighting UI’s potential to support family stability and promote more equitable child development during economic downturns,” Anna says.
Doctoral awards “support dissertation or capstone expenses of social work doctoral students whose work addresses at least one of the Grand Challenges. It is expected that awardee proposals will discuss the impact on and potential to create policy and practice changes.”
The Grand Challenges for Social Work is a program of the American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare (AASWSW), to “champion social progress powered by science. It’s a call to action for social work researchers and practitioners.”