NKU Professor Kelly Moffett receives second Fulbright scholarship

October 22, 2024 - Northern Kentucky University is celebrating the success of Professor Kelly Moffett in receiving a second Fulbright award, a prestigious recognition that highlights her exceptional contributions to academia and cultural exchange.

Building on the success of her first Fulbright award, Professor Moffett will travel to Poland next spring to design and teach two creative writing classes in the Department of North American Cultures and Literatures at the University of Warsaw, with the long-term goal of establishing a creative writing program at the university. While abroad, she will meet with Polish writers and poets to immerse herself in their literary traditions and bring back translated works to incorporate into her teaching at NKU.

“Going to Poland is a life-long dream. I learned how to write poetry by reading and imitating the work of great Polish writers, and I can't wait to walk down the same streets they walked and even sit in some of the same classrooms they attended or taught in,” says Professor Moffett. “Much of my research for my current creative writing has been focused on the Holocaust, and Poland is clearly the best place to be for that. I can't wait to see what I learn while I am there to take back to the NKU classroom. I am certain my teaching will change while being exposed to an entirely different culture.”

In 2020, Professor Moffett received her first Fulbright award which she used to introduce creative writing techniques at the Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai (UBB) in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. There, Professor Moffett worked with UBB faculty to integrate creative writing into the university’s undergraduate and emerging graduate programs while also researching how teaching creative writing differs in a post-communist society. From this, she realized the importance of cultural exchange, which lead her to create the Creative Writing in Transylvania study abroad program. During this program, professors Kelly Moffett and Sara Moore Wagner traveled to Romania with 25 NKU students to study the country’s culture including vampires, folklore, history, art and writing.

Professor Moffett has authored three collections of poetry, and her work has appeared in many journals including Colorado Review, Rattle, Cincinnati Review, Barrelhouse, Laurel Review, Verse Daily and The Cortland Review. She has also been awarded multiple grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

Professor Moffett is one of 12 faculty at NKU who are Fulbright scholars. NKU celebrates Professor Moffett’s remarkable achievement and looks forward to the positive impact her work will continue to have on the university and the broader academic community.