RACHEL L. SWARNS is a journalism professor at New York University and a contributing writer for The New York Times. She is also the author of American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama and a co-author of Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives. Her work has been recognized and supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the Biographers International Organization, the Leon Levy Center for Biography, the MacDowell artist residency program, and others.
