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Walder Award

Northwestern’s annual Martin E. and Gertrude G. Walder Award for Research Excellence is awarded to one faculty member each year for excellence in research. It carries with it a stipend of $20,000.

The Walder Award was established by Dr. Joseph A. Walder, who earned a master’s degree in chemistry from Northwestern in 1972 and an M.D. degree in 1975. He has also established a permanently endowed professorship at Northwestern, the Irving M. Klotz Research Professorship.

Congratulations to the 2026 Recipient

Cynthia Coburn

Cynthia Coburn

Margaret Walker Alexander Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development and Social Policy, School of Education and Social Policy

Cynthia Coburn, the Margaret Walker Alexander Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development and Social Policy at the School of Education and Social Policy (SESP), has received the 2026 Martin E. and Gertrude G. Walder Award for Research Excellence.

Coburn studies the relationship between instructional policy and teachers' classroom practices in urban schools, the dynamics of school district policy making, spread and scale of educational innovations, and the relationship between research and practice for school improvement.

Coburn has won numerous awards for her scholarship, including the American Educational Research Association Early Career Award, an honorary doctorate from CU Louvain in Belgium, Northwestern’s Ver Steeg Distinguished Research Fellowship and the Charles Deering McCormick Professorship of Teaching Excellence.

She is a fellow of the American Educational Research Association and an elected member of both the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.