Nicolás Kanellos, Ph.D. is the director of Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Heritage of the United States, the premier center for research on Latino documentary history in the United States, and, since 1980, a professor at the University of Houston, where, in 1996, he became the first Brown Foundation Professor of Hispanic Studies. He is founding publisher of the noted Hispanic literary journal The Americas Review and the nation’s oldest and most esteemed Hispanic publishing house, Arte Público Press. Arte Público Press is the oldest and largest publisher of Latino literature in the United States. In 2019 it was awarded the Ivan Snadroff Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Book Critics’ Circle.

In 2024, President Joe Biden presented Dr. Kanellos with the National Humanities Medal. In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed Dr. Kanellos to the National Council on the Humanities, and he received the 1996 Denali Press Award of the American Library Association. In 2009 he was the first U.S. Latino to be inducted into the Spanish American Royal Academy of Literature, Arts & Science, Cadiz, Spain. In 2014, he was awarded the Anderson Imbert Lifetime Achievement Award by the North American Academy of the Spanish Language. In 2016, he was awarded the Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic Queen, the highest decoration given to a civilian by the Spanish government. He has authored or contributed to numerous books on Latino history, culture and literature, including Visible Ink Press’ Latino Almanac: From Early Explorers to Corporate Leaders and Latino Firsts: Trailblazers and Milestones in United States History as well as the Hispanic Literature of the United States: A Comprehensive Reference, and the Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States. He resides in Houston, Texas.