Jewel Rodgers

Jewel Rodgers earned her BA in business administration from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and her MS in real estate development from New York University. She has been a spoken word poet for over a decade, performing in schools, festivals, community spaces, conferences, and public events, including 100 Years | 100 Women, TEDxLincoln, and Amplifying the Black Experience.

Rodgers is a three-time Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards nominee for Best Performance Poet in Omaha and a three-time TEDx speaker. Her recognitions include being a 2022 Union for Contemporary Art Fellow, a 2023 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Populus Fund grantee, and a 2024 finalist in the BlackBerry Peach National Poetry Slam. 

Rodgers teaches with the Nebraska Writers Collective. In 2025, she was appointed the poet laureate of Nebraska through 2029.