Professor Rowena Kennedy-Epstein has been selected by The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center as one of its fifteen 2025-26 Fellows, which includes academics, nonfiction writers, and creative writers. Throughout the Fellowship term, which runs from September 2025 through May 2026, the new class of Cullman Center Fellows will have access to the renowned research collections and resources of The New York Public Library, as well as the invaluable assistance of its curatorial and reference staff. 

Professor Kennedy-Epstein's project at the Library is entitled Mother of Us All: The Life and Writing of Muriel Rukeyser, the first biography of American writer Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980), whose poetry, plays, films, novels, and biographies - accounts of war and the rise of fascism, racial injustice, environmental disaster, motherhood, and sexuality - defied and remade women's positions in 20th-century America. This follows her award-winning work on Rukeyser's writing, published by Cornell University Press.

For more information about the Center, its current and former Fellows, and its programs for teachers and the general public, visit the NYPL website. You can find out more about Professor Kennedy-Epstein's research and teaching here.