Announcing the 2026 Affordable Instructional Resources grant awardees

Northwestern University Libraries are pleased to share the winners of the 2026 Affordable Instructional Resources (AIR) Faculty Grants. The AIR program supports faculty in adopting, adapting, and creating open educational resources that reduce course costs for students while supporting teaching and learning across campus. These grants help instructors build free, openly licensed course materials that are tailored to their classrooms and can be shared more broadly with the academic community. 

This year’s awardees represent a diverse range of disciplines and instructional approaches, including calculus sequences, data science, participatory design, language learning, and global policy. Their work highlights how open educational resources can enhance student engagement, integrate with course goals, and evolve over time to meet changing pedagogical needs.

We also want to recognize the Mathematics Department for its continued leadership in advancing open educational resources at Northwestern. Faculty in mathematics have been instrumental in both adopting and creating high impact open materials that serve large enrollment courses and support consistent learning across multiple sections.

A sampling of completed projects can be viewed on Northwestern’s OER website.

2026 AIR Grant Awardees

Matthew Grossman
School of Communication, IDS 462 (Experience Design)
Developing an adapted open design workbook that aligns with advanced coursework in user centered design and supports hands on student projects.

Alicia Hossein
School of Communication, IDS 466
Creating a new participatory design workbook focused on inclusive collaborative methods that replace traditional commercial textbooks with freely available, adaptable materials.

Aaron Greicius and Gabriela Laboska
Department of Mathematics, Math 218 1, 218 2, and 218 3
Expanding an open calculus textbook into a full three quarter sequence and adding a practice workbook with assessments and instructor resources.

Emre Besler
Department of Statistics and Data Science, STAT 305 (Information Management for Data Science)
Producing a comprehensive open textbook that integrates Python and SQL instruction to support data management practices in a required course.

Nicholas Marchuk
Department of Mechanical Engineering, ME 333 (Introduction to Mechatronics)
Developing a new open textbook and learning aids that reflect current technologies and support hands on instruction with open-source tools.

Alba Girons
Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Spanish 206 (Spanish for Business)
Creating a modular open textbook focused on professional communication skills for business contexts in Spanish.

Sera Young
Department of Anthropology, Anthropology 357 and SPS ANTHRO 391 (Environmental Policy and Culture)
Building an interactive digital open book on measuring water insecurity with embedded media and activities for multiple learning levels.