Pengfei Zhao has been awarded top prize in the 2017 International Institute for Qualitative Methodology (IIQM) Dissertation Award — Ph.D. Level. Zhao received her Ph.D. in Inquiry Methodology in the department of Counseling and Educational Psychology in October 2017.

Zhao’s dissertation, “Changing Fate: The Cultural Revolution’s Rural Youth in Transition to Late-Socialist China,” is the first book-length study of rural Chinese youth’s experience during and immediately after the Cultural Revolution and tells a forgotten story of how the rural youth came of age during China’s massive social changes of the post/late-socialist transition. Dr. Phil Carspecken is her dissertation committee chair.

“I am very honored to be selected as the recipient of the IIQM dissertation award. It came as a big surprise.” Zhao said. “I also appreciate the financial support that the award offered, which will allow me to conduct additional follow-up research in China this coming summer and revise the dissertation into a book manuscript.”

Zhao currently teaches graduate research methodology courses for the School of Education, Indiana University-Bloomington. She also serves as one of the doctoral research consultants in the school.