The Visitor Studies Association offers three scholarships for financial aid to attend our in-person conferences, which occur every other year. In virtual conference years, financial aid is offered to a limited number of attendees via a request form.

We offer three distinct scholarships, with one awardee each for in-person conferences: 

Below is a descriptions of each award with an announcement of this year's winner.

Student of Promise Scholarship - Zhiyue Chen

Zhiyue Chen is a master’s student in Museology at the University of Washington, specializing in evaluation and visitor research. Her work focuses on how museums understand, interpret, and respond to diverse visitor experiences, especially across linguistic and cultural contexts.

Zhiyue has conducted evaluation and audience research with institutions including the Seattle Art Museum, Woodland Park Zoo, and the Museum of Pop Culture, exploring questions of engagement, relevance, and belonging through both research and practice. Her current thesis examines how Chinese-speaking visitors experience belonging in U.S. art museums, highlighting language not only as access to information, but also as a source of cognitive comfort and emotional recognition. More broadly, she is interested in how visitor studies can move beyond measuring outcomes to better engage with lived experience, trust, and relational forms of engagement.

Institutional Capacity-Building Scholarship - Kelly Ulrich

Kelly Ulrich has 25 years of experience in zoo education but started participating in research after joining the Seneca Park Zoo Society in Rochester, NY eight years ago as the Director of Education & Visitor Studies.  Earlier this year, she transitioned to the new position of Director of Program Evaluation & Audience Research that was created to expand the Zoo Society’s institutional capacity for evaluation and research.  Kelly was introduced to the Visitor Studies Association during a 2018 Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) conference, which led her to join VSA and engage with the ZAFIG/ZAGFIG.  In her new role, Kelly looks forward to becoming more involved with VSA and learning from other members.  She’s honored to receive VSA’s Capacity Builder Scholarship and is excited to attend her first Visitor Studies Association conference.

New Voices Scholarship - Manijeh Fe Azadi, PhD

Manijeh Azadi is a developmental psychologist and nonprofit leader with over a decade of experience supporting liberatory programming through evaluation and applied research. Manijeh's interdisciplinary work explores community organizing as a collective healing practice, centering marginalized peoples' experiences of justice, joy, and play as pillars of wellbeing. Now managing evaluation at The Huntington, Manijeh aims to elevate community-informed approaches to learning, impact, and accountability.