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Fellowships Aim to Nurture Research Talent

Kirsten Kainz, a statistician and research faculty member at the University of North Carolina, is using her fellowship to study the impact of different classroom contexts on children’s learning.

—Photo by Sara D. Davis/Education Week

Programs Help Young Scholars Into the Field, But Some Efforts Winding Down

By Debra Viadero

For Kirsten Kainz, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, $35,000 buys a lot of time.

Time, that is, to pursue her own research passions, to hone methodological skills, and to learn from and collaborate with mentors or other scholars doing similar work.

Ms. Kainz is among hundreds of education researchers across the country getting the gift of time through fellowships aimed at nurturing young talent in the field. Since 2000, at least half a dozen such programs have sprung up, from the pre-...