The family of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Martin J. Sherwin establishes a fellowship for nuclear age biography at the Leon Levy Center for Biography

Oct 21

A gift of over $200,000 to the CUNY Graduate Center from the family and friends of late Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Martin J. Sherwin will endow an important new fellowship at the school’s renowned Leon Levy Center for Biography.

Originally posted by The Graduate Center, October 20, 2025.

The Martin J. Sherwin Biography Fellowship in Nuclear Age History* will support biographers and historians writing about influential figures in nuclear age science, politics, and diplomacy. Part of the Leon Levy Center’s ongoing endowment campaign, which launched last year with a $10 million gift from the Leon Levy Foundation, the new gift is being matched dollar for dollar by the foundation.

The fellowship honors Sherwin (1937 – 2021), a pioneer of nuclear age history who co-authored with Leon Levy Center Executive Director Kai Bird the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The bestselling biography served as the basis for Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer.

“Martin J. Sherwin’s work exemplifies how rigorous biography illuminates the lives of individuals and the fascinating way those lives both reflected and shaped science, society, politics, and power,” said Graduate Center President Joshua C. Brumberg. “We are deeply grateful to Susan and Alex Sherwin for this generous gift celebrating this legacy and honored to offer writers and historians the space to explore the nuclear age in all its complexity as part of the Leon Levy Center’s mission to promote extraordinary biography and scholarship.”

“Marty Sherwin was a consummate biographer – meticulous, graceful, and determined to portray the whole man,” Bird said. “Ours was a wonderful collaboration, and I’m sure Marty would be delighted to see a fellowship in his name housed at the Leon Levy Center for Biography and devoted to the study of figures in the nuclear age.”

Sherwin’s career spanned decades of scholarship and teaching at institutions including Tufts, Dartmouth, the University of California, Berkeley, and George Mason University. He wrote two other influential and acclaimed books about the nuclear age: A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance and Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Sherwin’s family created the fellowship to carry on his commitment to mentorship and rigorous historical inquiry. Numerous friends and colleagues also contributed to the fund.

“Marty loved teaching and prioritized working with young scholars to help hone and support their work,” said his son, Alex Sherwin, who established the fellowship with his mother, Susan Sherwin. “He valued discourse, storytelling, and exploring the complicated characters that populated his studies. He would be thrilled with this connection to the Leon Levy Center at CUNY, both for its mission and for Kai Bird’s stewardship of it.”

Before coming to the Graduate Center, the Sherwin Fellowship was hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., where Sherwin had been a fellow and helped organize an international “nuclear history boot camp” for young scholars. When the center closed in 2025, the family sought a new home and chose the Graduate Center’s Leon Levy Center.

The Martin J. Sherwin Biography Fellowship will be awarded through the Leon Levy Center’s established selection process. The award will provide a competitive stipend, office space, and access to the Graduate Center’s resources, as well as a vibrant community of biographers and mentors. Candidates will be chosen for projects focused on significant historical figures, with an emphasis on science, politics, and the global ramifications of the nuclear age, including before and beyond the Cold War.

*The naming of the fellowship is pending the approval of the CUNY Board of Trustees at its October 27 meeting.