NSW State Library announces 2026 fellowships
The State Library of NSW has announced its 2026 fellowships, with a total of $314,000 awarded across 9 categories. The fellowships cover a range of original research topics to be undertaken during what is the Library’s 200th anniversary year.
The State Library’s 2026 fellows and their projects are:
- Coral Thomas Fellow ($120,000): Mark Dunn for “Sydney’s Whaling Trade, 1790–1850”
- Imago Fellow ($50,000): Karolina Ristevski for “Cate_Blanchett.exe Not Found: A meta-theatrical crime fiction play for the Australian stage”
- Dr AM Hertzberg AO Fellow ($30,000): Jeannine Baker for “Sydney: Australia’s first media city”
- Nancy Keesing AM Fellow ($25,000): Cameo Dalley for “A Life on the Page: Locating affect in the works of midcentury Australian writer Ion Idriess”
- Australian Rligious History Fellow ($20,000): Ruby Ekkel for “All Creatures Great and Small: Faith and nature education in NSW, 1884–1952”
- CH Currey Fellow ($20,000): Hannah Forsyth for “What Happened to the Gold? Reconsidering risk, money and the rise of modern banking at the 175th anniversary of the NSW Gold Rush”
- Merewether Fellow ($12,000): Tamson Pietsch for “The NSW Church and Schools Land”
- David Scott Mitchell Fellow ($12,000): Nicole Townsend for “Close the Bases: A history of the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition”
- Ross Steele AM Fellow ($12,000): Sarah Thomas for “Tracing Extinction: The role of natural history illustration in colonial Australia”.
State librarian Caroline Butler-Bowdon said, “Our highly significant fellowships program has supported researchers for over 50 years, and it continues to grow. It’s especially exciting, as the library turns 200, to see our collections used in so many different ways; we really do have stories for everyone.”
For the first time, the library will also welcome five summer fellows (Architecture) in partnership with the NSW Architects Registration Board.
Further details and a full list of summer fellows, artists in residence and visiting fellows are available on the SLNSW website.
Category: Local news
