Conor Tomás Reed, an adjunct assistant professor in Africana Studies and American Studies at Brooklyn College, was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Adjunct Faculty Fellowship.

The Career Enhancement Fellowship, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, seeks to increase the presence of underrepresented junior and other faculty members in the arts and humanities by creating career development opportunities for selected fellows with promising research projects.

The award will support Reed as they (Reed’s pronoun of choice) complete a book about the rise of Black, Puerto Rican, and Women’s Studies and cultural movements at the City College of New York and in New York City from 1960 to the present.

Reed is also developing a trilingual anthology on Black Women’s Studies in the Americas and the Caribbean, which will culminate in a November 2020–January 2021 residency at Wendy’s Subway in Brooklyn and a 2021 publication. During the fellowship period, Reed will teach a Brooklyn College course, “Literatures of the African Diaspora,” to facilitate the Wolfe Institute’s fall reading group on “Land, Decolonization, and the University,” and organize with Free CUNY and Rank and File Action (RAFA).

The Fellowship provides Reed with a six-month stipend; a research, travel, or publication stipend; participation in a professional development retreat; and working with a mentor from a professional network of tenured former Career Enhancement Fellows. Reed will be mentored by Brooklyn College associate professor of English and Gender Studies, Rosamond S. King, whose scholarly work focuses on sexuality, performance, and literature in the Caribbean and Africa.

Reed received their Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center’s English Program, and their B.A. from the City College of New York. About the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

Founded in 1945, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (www.woodrow.org) identifies and develops the nation’s best minds to meet its most critical challenges. The Foundation supports its Fellows as the next generation of leaders shaping American society. The 2020 Career Enhancement Fellows represent top institutions from across the country. Fellows work in such disciplines as African American and diaspora studies, English, LGBTQ studies, political science, sociology, and musicology.