Schechner's research, teaching, and exhibition work has earned her many awards and prestigious lectureships. In 2021, she delivered the James Arthur Lecture of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors--the first woman to do so since the lectureship's inception 90 years earlier. In 2021, the North American Sundial Society awarded her the Sawyer Dialing Prize--the "Oscar" of the sundial world because the recipient receives a customized window-sill sundial--in recognition of her career in education and conservation of our dialing heritage and in particular her authorship of Time of Our Lives: Sundials of the Adler Planetarium. In 2020, the American Astronomical Society named her a Legacy Fellow. She is the 2019 recipient of the Paul Bunge Prize from the German Chemical Society and the German Bunsen Society for Physical Chemistry; this is regarded worldwide as the most important honor in the history of scientific instruments. In 2018, the American Astronomical Society presented her with the LeRoy E. Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy. Awarded biennially to an individual who has significantly influenced the field of history of astronomy through a career-long effort, it is the most prestigious prize internationally in the discipline. Schechner was the first woman to receive this award. In addition, Schechner's innovative teaching in and outside of museums and academia was recognized by the prestigious Joseph H. Hazen Education Prize of the History of Science Society in 2008. Her exhibition, Time, Life, & Matter: Science in Cambridge, on permanent display in the Putnam Gallery of Harvard’s Science Center, took First Place in the 2007 International Design Awards competition, and Body of Knowledge: A History of Anatomy (in 3 Parts) received the Great Exhibitions Award of the British Society for the History of Science in 2014.