INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH

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Faculty and Student Honors

IPR faculty count among the nation's top scholars in their respective fields, producing research that is vibrant, inclusive, and impactful. The list below of the honorary fellowships, appointments, awards, and notable presentations celebrates their insightful contributions and research, as well as those of our talented students and postdoctoral fellows. You can also view our archive for awards prior to 2023.

January 2025

• Developmental psychologist and IPR associate Claudia Haase,  and her research assistant Angela Zhong, who were honored with Fletcher Awards. Zhong received the Lindsay Chase-Lansdale Undergraduate Summer Research Grant for Children and Families for her work on physiological mechanisms underlying empathy in child-caregiver interactions. Haase was awarded the Karl Rosengren Faculty Mentoring Award, for guiding the top summer undergraduate research grant project. 

• Jonathan Guryan, Kirabo Jackson, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Molly Schnell, Hannes Schwandt, and Nicola Bianchi—all economists— had their research cited in the 2025 Economic Report of the President.

December 2024

• Sylvia Perry, IPR psychologist, will serve as an associate editor at Current Directions in Psychological Science and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin starting in January 2025.

November 2024

• IPR statistician Beth Tipton and professor and founding chair of medical social sciences and IPR associate David Cella were included on Clarivate’s 2024 Highly Cited Researchers list. 

• Michelle Birkett,  health disparities researcher and IPR associate, was chosen to lead Feinberg’s Center for Computational and Social Sciences in Health (COMPASS). The center will bridge data science, social science, and population health to advance cutting-edge research in healthcare

October 2024

• IPR psychologist Sylvia Perry was selected to be a Fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

September 2024

• IPR psychologist Sylvia Perry received the 2024 Ann L. Brown Award for Excellence in Developmental Research by the Department of Psychology at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

• IPR statistician Elizabeth Tipton and collective innovation scholar and IPR associate Elizabeth Gerber were named as Academic Leadership Program Fellows for the 2024–25 academic year by Northwestern’s Office of the Provost.

June 2024

• Nosh Contractor, social networking expert and IPR associate, was named executive director of Web Science Trust, a UK-based charity.
• Comparative media scholar and IPR associate Pablo Boczkowski received the 2024 Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Culture from the Media Ecology Association.
• Professor and IPR associate emeritus Dan O’Keefe received the Steven H. Chaffee Career Achievement Award from the International Communication Association.

May 2024

• Claudia Haase, developmental psychologist and IPR associate, was awarded the 19th annual Dorothy Ann and Clarence L. Ver Steeg Distinguished Research Fellowship Award.
• Pablo Boczkowski, comparative media scholar and IPR associate, was awarded the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Career Achievement Award from the American Sociological Association.
• IPR statistician Elizabeth Tipton was named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.
• Social policy scholar and IPR associate Quinn Mulroy was awarded the 2024 Ver Steeg Award for her work mentoring and supporting graduate students.
• IPR social psychologist Eli Finkel and his co-authors received an AMA-EBSCO-RRBM Award for Responsible Research in Marketing for their Journal of Consumer Research paper, “Common Cents: Bank Account Structure and Couples’ Relationship Dynamics.”

April 2024

• IPR social policy expert Sally Nuamah won the W.E.B Dubois Distinguished Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists for her book, Closed for Democracy: How Mass School Closure Undermines the Citizenship of Black Americans (2023, Cambridge University Press). 
• Media scholar and IPR associate Thomas J. Billard was promoted to associate professor with tenure.
• IPR psychologist Sylvia Perry was named a Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) Fellow.
• IPR graduate RA Jonathan Doriscar was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Honor Society at Yale University.

March 2024

• Behavioral scientist and IPR associate Linda Teplin will be appointed to the Division Committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Division of Behavioral Social Sciences and Education.
• IPR social policy expert Sally Nuamah's book Closed for Democracy: How Mass School Closure Undermines the Citizenship of Black Americans, has been named a finalist in the Government and Politics category of the Association of American Publishers’ 2024 PROSE awards.

February 2024

• IPR statistician Elizabeth Tipton was named a fellow of the American Education Research Association.
• IPR social psychologist Eli Finkel was appointed the inaugural co-director of the new Kellogg Center for Enlightened Disagreement.
• IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong was named Associate Director of IPR as of Sept 1.
• Developmental psychologist and IPR associate Lauren Wakschlag was awarded the Paula H. Stern Award for Outstanding Women in Science and Medicine by the Northwestern Medical Women Faculty Organization.

January 2024

• IPR  statistician Elizabeth Tipton was elected President-Elect of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness.
• IPR  faculty adjunct Rachel Davis Mersey was appointed dean of Moody College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin. 

• IPR postdoctoral fellow Lauren Tighe was appointed research assistant professor on Jan. 1 and will co-direct the Northwestern Two-Generation Research Initiative.

December 2023

• Professor of medical social sciences and IPR associate Brian Mustanski was appointed to the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health. 
• IPR political scientist Tabitha Bonilla received the 2023 Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell Mentor Award for Exemplary Mentoring of Latino/a Graduate Students in Political Science from the American Political Science Association Committee on the Status of Latinos y Latinas in the Profession.
• IPR psychologist Sylvia Perry was awarded the 2024 Ann L. Brown Award for Excellence in Developmental Research by the Developmental Area of the Psychology Department at the University of Illinois.

November 2023

• IPR  statistician Larry Hedges received the José Vasconcelos World Award of Education at the University of Helsinki. Learn more about his career and achievements.
• Professor and founding chair of medical social sciences and IPR associate David Cella, IPR political scientist Jamie Druckman, and IPR statistician Elizabeth Tipton were named 2023 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate. 
• IPR developmental psychologist and IPR associate Yang Qu won the 2023 Early Career Award from the Society for the Study of Human Development.

September 2023

• IPR social psychologist Mesmin Destin was named the University’s inaugural faculty director of student access and enrichment. 
• Professor and founding chair of medical social sciences and IPR associate David Cella was named the winner of the 2023 Tripartite Legacy Faculty Prize in Translational Science and Education.
• IPR political scientist Daniel Galvin, IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong, and IPR statistician Elizabeth Tipton were each promoted to full professor.
• IPR economist Hannes Schwandt and healthcare economist and IPR associate Amanda Starc were promoted to research associates of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

August 2023

• Healthcare economist and IPR associate Craig Garthwaite was named a member of the Panel of Health Advisers to the Congressional Budget Office. 
• Sociologist and African American studies researcher and IPR associate Mary Pattillo received a commitment to justice award from the Ida B. Wells Legacy Committee.
• IPR economist Kirabo Jackson was appointed a senior member of President Joe Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers.
• IPR statistician Elizabeth Tipton was elected as chair of the Social Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association. 
• IPR anthropologist Sera Young was awarded a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

July 2023

• IPR social policy expert Sally Nuamah received the American Political Science Association’s Ralph J. Bunche Award, Dennis Judd Award, and the Best Book Award from the Race, Ethnicity & Politics section, for her latest book, Closed for Democracy: How Mass School Closure Undermines the Citizenship of Black Americans (2023, Cambridge University Press). 
• IPR political scientist Chloe Thurston received the American Political Science Association’s Heinz I. Eulau Award for her co-authored article “From the margins to the center: A bottom-up approach to welfare state scholarship.” 
• IPR economist Ofer Malamud received SESP’s Outstanding Faculty Member Award.

June 2023

• Media, technology, and society researcher and IPR associate Pablo Boczkowski's book, Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers (2004, MIT Press), received the 2023 Fellows Book Award from the International Communication Association. The book also received the ICA's Best Book Award in 2005, making it the first in ICA's history to obtain its two major book awards.
• Social policy scholar and IPR associate Quinn Mulroy’s paper, “The rise of (e)quality politics: The political development of higher education policy, 1969–1999,” co-authored by Heather McCambly, won the 2022 David Brian Robertson Award for Best Paper in Politics and History, given by the American Political Science Association’s Politics and History Section.
• IPR sociologist Simone Ispa-Landa was elected chair of the American Sociological Association’s Education division. 

May 2023

• CORNERS Executive Director Soledad McGrath was appointed to serve on Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson's Public Safety Transition Subcommittee. 
• Political scientist and IPR associate Ana Arjona was selected as one of the next co-editors of Perspectives on Politics.

April 2023

• IPR health disparities scholar and IPR associate Melissa Simon was appointed as an associate editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). 

March 2023

• Learning sciences scholar and IPR associate Nichole Pinkard was chosen to be a fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).
• IPR political scientist Laurel Harbridge-Yong was selected as the 2023 Manatt Fellow of the Electoral Integrity Project.

February 2023

• Behavioral scientist and IPR associate Linda Teplin was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

January 2023

•  IPR statistician Larry Hedges, IPR economist Kirabo Jackson, IPR Director and economist Diane Schanzenbach, and IPR education professor and associate James Spillane were included in the 2023 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, ranking U.S. university-based scholars who did the most last year to shape educational practice and policy.