Yomna Zakaria has been selected for the 2026 Howard B. Woolston Award for Academic Excellence, the Department of Sociology’s oldest endowed student award and an annual honor recognizing outstanding academic achievement by a graduating senior.
Yomna rose to the front of a strong field through the breadth and consistency of her academic record, including sustained excellence in sociology, honors research, and advanced methodological training.
Her honors thesis examines why Seattle Public Schools considered closing neighborhood schools during a period of declining enrollment, rising housing costs, and rapid gentrification, but ultimately kept them open. A Sociology major with a minor in Data Science, Yomna combines quantitative and qualitative research to understand how cities decide which schools survive and which do not. Her research shows that school closure decisions are not simply technical questions about budgets and enrollment. They are also shaped by community advocacy, institutional response, and whose voices are heard when public schools are at risk. What stands out most about Yomna’s work is the humanity she brings to these questions. She studies schools not as abstract institutions, but as places that matter deeply to families and neighborhoods.
Her project has already earned national recognition through the American Sociological Association Student Forum and ASA Honors Program.