The Center for Applied Linguistics is pleased to recognize Dr. Deborah K. Palmer with the 2026 Charles A. Ferguson Award for Outstanding Scholarship. Dr. Palmer embodies Charles A. Ferguson’s commitment to scholarship and to thinking globally about the importance of language policies and language teaching and learning.

Deborah K. Palmer, Ph.D. is Professor of Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she is also affiliate faculty in the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education, the Department of Ethnic Studies, and the Culture, Language and Social Practice (CLASP) Program. A former dual language bilingual teacher in Redwood City, California and bilingual teacher educator in Austin, Texas, she is a qualitative researcher who conducts critical ethnography and discourse analysis in bilingual and multilingual schools and classrooms. Her interests include bilingual education policy and politics; dual language bilingual education; teacher preparation for linguistically/culturally diverse teaching contexts; teacher advocacy and activism; and issues of language, power and identity in schools. Most recently, she and colleagues are partnering with a newcomer center to engage multilingual youth in participatory action research toward linguistic justice. She is lead editor for the forthcoming Handbook of Bilingual Teacher Education (de Gruyter) and her two 2023 books, both co-edited with colleagues, were titled Critical Consciousness in Dual Language Bilingual Education: Case Studies on Policy and Practice (Routledge) and Gentrification and Bilingual Education: A Texas TWBE School Across Seven Years (Lexington/Bloomsbury). She has written over 75 book chapters and journal articles.