Evelyn Enriquez, a 2025 graduate of the Clinton School of Public Service, has been accepted into a doctorate program in Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University.
Enriquez, a first-generation college graduate from Enid, Oklahoma, selected the fully funded five-year doctoral track out of four competitive admissions offers, which also included three doctoral programs in sociology.
Enriquez credits her selection of Northwestern to its multidisciplinary framework, drawing a direct parallel to her Master of Public Service education.
“The reason why I chose Northwestern’s program is because they are interdisciplinary in nature,” she said. “I wanted a program that allowed me to learn from faculty with different backgrounds and perspectives. In my career and educational trajectory, I have been inherently interdisciplinary, just like how the Clinton School taught us to be in our approach to public service.”
Throughout her time at the Clinton School, Enriquez utilized her three required field service projects to analyze how systemic policies impact public service on local, national, and international levels. For her Practicum project, she conducted stakeholder mapping and needs assessments for after-school programming in Little Rock.
This was followed by her International Public Service Project, when she served as a fellow for the nonprofit Road to Hire in Charlotte, North Carolina, supporting career development and entrepreneurship education for students.
Her decision to pursue a doctoral degree was cemented during her Capstone project with the Family & Child Health Innovations Program at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. Working alongside Drs. Craig Garfield and Clarissa Simon on expanding public health research, Enriquez researched state-level fatherhood programming and its role in maternal and childhood health. She also assisted in writing and securing a successful grant application from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation that allowed the hospital to expand its research.
“My Capstone created an environment where I could be a student and dabble in other areas of academia,” Enriquez reflected, noting that the experience allowed her to contribute to grant writing and academic manuscripts. “I was doing my Capstone as I was taking Dean Victoria DeFrancesco Soto’s Policy Development course. I was learning this new way of thinking about policy while working directly on a policy project.”
Enriquez highlighted faculty members Dr. Nichola Driver, Dr. Robert Richards, and Dr. Al Bavon, who helped shape her approach to community-partnered research, dialogue facilitation, and data-driven program evaluation.
“Evelyn completely embodies the mission of the Clinton School by pairing rigorous academic inquiry with a deep commitment to community-based solutions,” said Dr. Nichola Driver, Assistant Dean of Impact. “Her ability to execute high-level data analysis while centering the lived experiences of the populations she studies makes her an exceptional researcher. We are incredibly proud to see her take these skills to Northwestern to shape future public policy.”