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The Office of Faculty Development (OFD) has announced the five faculty members selected to participate in the Scholarly Writing Fellows Program for the 2025-26 academic year. As a Scholarly Writing Fellow (SWF), faculty will partner with OFD to catalyze interdisciplinary support for faculty writing and expand a mutual support community of writers across campus.

The fellows will play a key role in continuing OFD’s ongoing mission to support faculty writing at UMass Amherst. Each fellow will launch and facilitate a Writing Circle comprised of small groups of faculty who meet weekly to write together and share progress on their writing. This cohort of fellows will begin offering Writing Circles the second week of September.

2025-26 Scholarly Writing Fellows:

• Karen Kurczynski, professor and graduate program director of the history of art and architecture
• Verónica Martín Ruiz, assistant professor of marketing
• Emiliano Ricciardi, associate professor of music history
• Aida Villanueva, assistant professor of sociology
• Jun Yang, lecturer of astronomy 

“The Scholarly Writing Fellows Program and our Writing Circles have been recognized by faculty participants for significantly increasing their scholarly writing and publications,” says Rebecca Dingo, senior fellow and associate director of OFD. “This year’s cohort comes from across various colleges and schools. They have particular expertise in grant writing, book publication, writing in non-native languages, and some new unique strategies for maintaining a robust writing schedule. I look forward to working with this diverse cohort who I know will bring new approaches and ideas for maintaining their writing activities.”

All faculty members and librarians can sign up through Friday, Aug. 22 to attend a fall Writing Circle led by a Scholarly Writing Fellow.