History Accolades 2024–25

• Joshua Althoff (PhD ‘25) received his PhD in May 2025 for his dissertation, “Vincennes in Myaamionki: Constructing and Contesting Indiana's Past in Miami Homelands.” David Chang and Jean O’Brien were his co-advisors.

• Heather Bailey (PhD ‘01) received the Scholar of the Year Award from the University of Illinois in Springfield.

• Adrian V. Chavana (PhD ‘23) was awarded a research fellowship at the SMU Clements Center for Southwest Studies for his project “Becoming Gente de Razón: The San Antonio MIssion Indians and Their Descendants.”

• Eliana Chavkin (PhD ‘25) received her PhD in March 2025 for her dissertation “‘The Monument Does Not Remember’: America's World War I Memorials and the Struggle to Create History from Memory.” Professor Saje Mathieu was her advisor. She was awarded Brown University's prestigious 2025–26 Pembroke Center Research Fellowship.

• Oscar Chuba (BA ‘25) has been admitted to the history PhD program at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a previous Hedley Donovan scholarship awardee. He received the 2024–25 Class of 1889 Memorial Prize for his paper “(A)Social History: Gendered Autism in the Early Soviet Union and Mid-Century United States.”

• Fikri Cicek (PhD ‘24) received his PhD in December 2024 for his dissertation “Children of Crisis: Politics, Science, and Faith in a Cross-Cultural Ottoman Druze Family, 1585-1703.” Giancarlo Casale was his advisor. In the fall, he will begin an appointment as assistant professor of history at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

• Heather Sommer Collins (PhD ‘24) received her PhD in November 2024 for her dissertation, “Louis XVI, Royalism, and Republicanism in Early America, 1775–1800.” Kirsten Fischer was her advisor.

• Christina Craig (BA ‘21) volunteered at Camphill Village Minnesota after graduation, where she lived, worked, and cared for adults with disabilities. She then moved back to Kansas to pursue her master of arts in teaching in secondary social studies education from Kansas State University.

• Elizabeth Dillenburg (PhD ‘19) published Empire's Daughters: Girlhood, Whiteness, and the Colonial Project. You can watch Elizabeth discuss her book Empire’s Daughters with the History Book Club

• Jessica Farrell (PhD ‘25) received her PhD in February 2025. Helena Pohlandt-McCormick was her advisor. Her dissertation, “Abolition through Recapture: Unfreedom, Necromancy, and Re(-)formation in Nineteenth-Century Liberia,” received the Best Dissertation Award in the Arts & Humanities category at the University of Minnesota.

• Benjamin Hansen (PhD ‘24) received his PhD in June 2024 for his dissertation “Between Trepidation and Hope: A Study of Palestinian Christians after the Arab Conquests, ca. 630-797.” Professors Andrea Sterk and Andrew Gallia were his co-advisors.

• Jayne Kinney (PhD ‘24) received her PhD in August 2024 for her dissertation “‘The Heart of the Nation’: The Roles of Female Leadership Networks in Mandan and Hidatsa Resistance and Resilience.” Professors Jean O’Brien and David Chang were her co-advisors. She has accepted a tenure-track position as assistant professor of American Indian studies at the University of North Dakota.

• Maia Klaustermeier (BA ‘25) was accepted into archaeological science master's programs at Cambridge, Oxford, and Uppsala University for the 2025–26 school year. She believes her double major in history and anthropology helped lead to this accomplishment, as well as her participation in several archaeological field schools and internships, and that her internship at the Ramsey County Historical Society and many of her history classes, especially British History to the 17th Century, played large roles.

• John Little (PhD ‘20) was named a 2025 Bush Fellow for his accomplishments as Director of Native Recruitment and Alumni Engagement at the University of South Dakota.

• Alexander Magnolia (PhD ‘24) received his PhD in November 2024 for his dissertation “Byzantium and Beyond: The Medieval Roman Empire and its World through the Letters of Patriarch Nicholas I Mystikos, 901-925 CE.” Professor Andrea Sterk was his advisor. He was appointed to the position of Public Historian at the Minnesota Historical Society.

• Nicholas Nyachega (PhD ‘24) received his PhD in July 2024 for his dissertation “‘Seeing Like Borderlanders’: Border(lands) Controls, Mobilities, Contestations, and Everyday Life in North-eastern Zimbabwe, c.1880s to 1980s.” Regents Professor Allen Isaacman was his advisor. He has accepted a tenure track position at Michigan State University.

• Katherine Pierpont (PhD ‘23) has accepted a tenure-track assistant professorship in the history of Europe and the Mediterranean World before 1700 at Bucknell University, beginning in fall 2025.

• Emily Rook-Koepsel (PhD ‘10), who is Assistant Director for Academic Affairs at the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh, was appointed the US Director of the American Institute of Indian Studies.

• Noam Sienna (PhD ‘20) published Making Jewish Books in North Africa: Between the Early Modern and Modern Worlds (Indiana University Press, 2025).

• Sultan Toprak Oker (PhD ‘24) received her PhD in December 2024 for her dissertation, “The Alcohol Networks of Ottoman Istanbul in the Seventeenth Century.” Giancarlo Casale was her advisor. She has since been hired as an Adjunct Instructor at Union College.

• Catherine Ulep (PhD ‘24) received her PhD in July 2024 for her dissertation “Makaʻāinana Wāhine: Clothing, Power, and the Sex-for-Goods Trade in Nineteenth-Century Hawai‘i.” Professor David Chang was her advisor.

• Ana Joanna Vergara Sierra (PhD ‘25) received her PhD in June 2025 for her dissertation “Contested Landscapes: Displacement, belonging and sovereignty making in revolutionary Venezuela (1783-1821).” Professor Sarah C. Chambers was her advisor.

• Gengwu Wang (PhD ‘24) received his PhD in September 2024 for his dissertation “Letters Live: Examine Chinese Migrant Families through Migrants’ Letters from the 1900s to the 1940s.” Professors Erika Lee and Ann Waltner were his co-advisors.

• Lucas Bishop was awarded the Hedley Donovan Scholarship in the summer of 2025 for his project En Utero Vite: The Conception of the Religious Right.

• Dori Catz was awarded the Hedley Donovan Scholarship in the summer of 2025 for her project Sexual Revolution and the Gay Power Movement’s Impact on Policing. She also received the John L. & Elizabeth T. Harnsberger Scholarship in 2024–25.

• Peter Grace received the 2024–25 Non-Paper Prize project for his project Thinker Make Maker Think.

• Briana Heidkamp-Vu received the 2024–25 Non-Western Paper Prize for her writing on “Plague Mapping on Medieval Chinese Trade Routes.”

• Jerry Jerabek received the 2024-25 George D. Green North American History Research Prize for his project Empowerment and Agency Via Religious Experiences in Slave Narratives.

• Hannah Kiresuk was awarded the Hedley Donovan Scholarship in summer 2025 for her project Hidden in Plain Sight: Investigating the Medical and Racial Hardships of WW1 POWs from New Zealand.

• Finley Kuukar received the 2024–25 Howard Reinmuth Prize in European History for his writing on “Christianity and Violence: Epistemologies of Crisis in 17th Century Scandinavia.”

• Sophia LaBrie published her final project on a work of historical fiction from the perspective of the mythical Bebba, Queen of Bebbanburg (in Bernicia, Northumbria) in the 7th century, from Professor Andrea Sterk's class Pagans, Christians, and Barbarians, in the Upper Midwest Honors Council's Heartland Review. 

• Dyllon Lohmann (pictured above) was awarded the Outstanding Student Library Employee award for 2025 for her work with the Wangensteen Historical Library. This was a recognition of her stellar work with past window exhibits at the library and overall project organization.

• Raquel Banaszak was awarded a DOVE fellowship and a Beverly and Richard Fink Summer Research Fellowship.

• Jokeda Bell received a Beverly and Richard Fink Summer Research Fellowship. She also published Red Stained: The Life of Hilda Simms (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2024). You can watch Jokeda Bell discuss her book Red Stained with the History Book Club.

• Myra Billund-Phibbs received the Estelle Freedman Award in January 2024 from the LGBTQ+ History Association (Formerly the Committee on LGBT History). She presented "Emerging Voices in LGBTQIA History" at the Organization of American Historians Conference in April 2025. She was interviewed for KFAI's Minneculture podcast about the histories of '70s lesbian feminism and trans women in the Twin Cities; her oral history contact Sissy Potter and UW-Madison historian Finn Enke were both heavily featured as well. She received a 2025 COGS Conference Grant, as well as a 2025 Graduate School Research Travel Grant.

• Gail Coughlin received a NCAIS (Newberry Consortium in American Indian and Indigenous Studies) Graduate Research Grant for summer 2025. 

• Shankar CSR received a 2025–26 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. 

• Dwjuan Frazier was awarded the Brandywine Dissertation Fellowship, a residential fellowship at the Hagley Library's Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society in Wilmington, DE, and the 2025 Beverly and Richard Fink Summer Research Fellowship.

• Jake Henke received a Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship in African Studies to study Arabic in summer 2025.

• Mukund Jha received an Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship (IDF) for 2025–26.

• Patricia Johnson-Castle received a Hella Mears fellowship for summer 2025. 

• Lu Johnston received a McNally Fellowship in summer 2025. 

• Makena Kefuoe received an ICGC (Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change) Fellowship for 2024–25. 

• Tibisay Navarro-Mana received a one-semester CLA Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship  for 2025–26. She was also co-editor of the book Violencias, memoria y cine. La construcción audiovisual del pasado (2024). Among the authors of chapters in the book are alumna Paula Cuellar Cuellar and graduate students Hao-Wen Cheng and Erin Smith.

• Mahmut Polat received the Paul Murphy Legal History Award for summer 2025.

• Kanha Prasad received an Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship for 2025–26.

• Brayden Rothe received an Honorable Mention in the 2025 US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) competition. Brayden also won a best poster award at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America for his poster “Fertility Differentials and Racial Violence in the American South, 1880-1930: Theoretical Evidence, Initial Analysis, and Results” (with sociology graduate student Christopher Robertson).

• Lindsey Willow Smith received an Elouise Cobell Graduate Scholarship from the Cobell Scholarship Fund in 2024–25. She also presented a paper entitled “Native Sun: Shining Light on Women and Newspaper’s Role in Identity Making and Maintaining in Midcentury Detroit” at the Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies (NCAIS) Graduate Conference. 

• Jessica Tharp received a CPS (Center for Pre Modern Studies) Dissertation Fellowship for summer 2025. 

• Shinya Yoshida received the Italian American Immigration Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship from the Immigration History Research Center. He was awarded a Japanese Association of American Studies Student Travel Grant for the OAH Annual Conference through the OAH-JAAS collaborative project, with generous funding support from the Japan-United States Friendship Commission. He received a Huntington Library Fellowship from The Huntington Library. He was granted a research grant from The Uehiro Foundation on Ethics and Education.

• Susanna Blumenthal has been awarded the Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellowship at Princeton University for 2025–26 to work on her book project The Apprehension of Fraud in Modern America, which explores the ambiguous borderland between capitalism and crime in American culture, with the broader aim of illuminating the historical relationship between law and trust. 

• Emma Brunette (pictured above, left) was awarded a 2024–25 Outstanding Service Award from the College of Liberal Arts for her stellar contributions to the Department of History. 

• David Chang has been awarded a residential fellowship in spring 2026 at the Newberry Library for his research project Indigenous History is about the Future: California Native History and the Purposes of the Past.

• Tracey Deutsch (pictured above, middle) received the 2024–25 President's Award for Outstanding Service for her outstanding contributions to the University. She has also received an honorable mention from the OAH for the Binkley-Stephenson Award for her article “The Vigorous Approach to Cooking: Julia Child, Domesticity, and Gendered Labor at Midcentury.”

• Kirsten Fischer received the Arthur "Red" Motley Exemplary Teaching Award for 2024–25. Watch this video to hear the nominators talk about Professor Fischer.

• Andrew Gallia received an Award for Excellence in Academic Unit Service in recognition of his notable contributions to the department in the 2024 calendar year. He was promoted to Professor of History.

• Sheer Ganor spent 2024–25 at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan for a year-long residential fellowship. She worked on her research project on the history of the Beggar Bar in New York, established by a refugee from Nazi Germany, which fit into their annual theme of “Jewish/Queer/Trans.”

• Aaron Hall was awarded a residential fellowship for spring 2025 at The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University, where he worked on completing his book The Founding Rules: Slavery and the Creation of American Constitutionalism, 1789-1889. He has also been selected as a McKnight Land-Grant Professor for a two-year term (2025–27). He will be working on his second book project, The Public Institution: Slavery and the State in Plantation America.

• Christopher Isett has received a visiting research fellowship from the World Sinology Center at Beijing University for two fall semesters (2025 and 2026).

• Saje Mathieu was awarded Fulbright's Distinguished Research Chair fellowship for 2024-25 to work on a new project on Black Canadian soldiers in the Great War as well as building a digital oral history archive of francophone Black Canadians.

• Hiromi Mizuno was awarded an Annual Faculty Research Grant through the Imagine Fund for her project Valuating Damages: Critical History of Green Ammonia. In addition, her article “Okinawa Agriculture and the Sterile Insect Technology,” received the 2024 Vernon Carstensen Memorial Award for the best article published in the journal Agricultural History (November 2024) from the Agricultural History Society.

• Jean O'Brien (pictured above, right) received the Carter Revard Legacy Award for Best Edited Collection from the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures in 2024 (with Daniel Heath Justice, Allotment Stories: Indigenous Land Under Settler Siege). She was also awarded the Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Distinguished Service from the Organization of American Historians in 2025.

• Zozan Pehlivan was awarded a fellowship from the Linda Hall Library to support her research. She has been appointed to a three-year term as the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair in the College of Liberal Arts. She also published The Political Ecology of Violence Peasants and Pastoralists in the Last Ottoman Century (Cambridge University Press, 2024). You can watch Zozan discuss her book The Political Ecology of Violence with the History Book Club. She was granted tenure and promoted to associate professor of history.

• David M. Perry published Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe (Harper Collins, 2024). You can hear him and co-author Matthew Gabriele discuss their book at the History Book Club on September 10, 2025.

• Theofanis Stavrou was voted in as an honorary member of the Greek and Cypriot Cultural Society based in Athens for his lifetime contribution to "Excellence in Science, Culture, and Humanism."

Yalile Suriel received the RIDGS (Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies) Tenure-Track Faculty Writing Award for spring 2026 to work on her book manuscript.