Two School of Education/WCER members awarded research fellowships for 2024–25

David Kaplan, Andy Garbacz among 32 scholars selected campus-wide

July 30, 2024   |   By WCER Communications

Thirty-two UW–Madison faculty have been awarded fellowships from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research for 2024–25, including School of Education/WCER members David Kaplan and Andy Garbacz. The awardees span the four research divisions on campus: arts and humanities, physical sciences, social sciences, and biological sciences.

“These awards recognize excellence in faculty research, academics, and outreach at various stages of their scholarly careers and provide an opportunity for continued development of their research programs,” says Cynthia Czajkowski, interim vice chancellor for research. “I look forward to seeing the results of their imaginative use of these funds.”

The awards are possible due to the research efforts of UW–Madison faculty and staff. Technology that arises from these efforts is licensed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and the income from successful licenses is returned to the OVCR, where it’s used to fund research activities and awards throughout the divisions on campus.

Eight faculty including Kaplan have been awarded WARF Named Professorships, which come with $100,000 and honor faculty who have made major contributions to the advancement of knowledge, primarily through their research endeavors, but also as a result of their teaching and service activities. Award recipients choose the names associated with their professorships.

Kaplan, Richard L. Venezky Professor of Educational Psychology, studies Bayesian statistical methods with applications to large-scale national and international educational assessments. Kaplan was chair of the Department of Educational Psychology from 2012 to 2015, and received the Samuel J. Messick Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the American Psychological Association. He was President of the Psychometric Society (2023–2024) and an International Guest Professor at the University of Heidelberg (2023).

Thirteen faculty, including Garbacz, have been honored with the H.I. Romnes Fellowships to recognize faculty with exceptional research contributions within their first six years from promotion to a tenured position. The award is named in recognition of the late WARF trustees president H.I. Romnes and comes with $60,000 that may be spent over five years.

Garbacz, is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology. His research focuses on mental health promotion; optimizing mental health interventions in school and community settings to center equity and justice; and improving adoption, implementation and sustainment. Garbacz emphasizes development, testing, and scaling for dissemination of family-centered and family-school partnership interventions to promote youth mental health.

Learn more about all of the awardees here.