His work on fairy-wrens is based around a detailed long-term study of their curious mating and social system at the Australian National Botanic Gardens.
In 2001, Cockburn was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA)[3] and awarded the Centenary Medal.
Serventy Medal, which recognises excellence in published work on birds in the Australasian region.
In 2012, he gave the Tinbergen Lecture of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Since 2014, he has been Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Ecology and Natural History in the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University.