Graduate Student Accomplishments

Check out what our graduate students have been doing.

2021

Victor Garcia (M.A.) received the Outstanding M.A. Student for 2020-2021.

Kevin Luginbill's (Ph.D.) article, “Penny Post Imperialists: Imagining and Experiencing Empire in Letters to the Colonial Office, 1903,” appeared in the Journal of Commonwealth and Imperial History, 49, 2 (2021), 260-83.

LeNie Adolphson (Ph.D.) was awarded the 2021 Karyn and Terrance Holm Visiting Scholar Award from the Midwest Nursing History Research Center at the University of Illinois Chicago. LeNie will use the fellowship to conduct research for her dissertation on the history of Chicago's Provident Hospital. She also won the WTTW Fellowship from the Judy and John McCarter Family Fellowship Program to work as a research intern on the documentary “Ida B. Wells: A Chicago Stories Special,” which began airing in May 2021.

Alexander Lundberg (Ph.D.) received the 2021 Hugh Jameson Graduate Student Essay Prize for “Moral Bonds, Modern Subjects: The Savings of Slaves, Emancipations, and the Policies of Gradual Abolition in Rio de Janeiro, 1871-1888.”

Alex Craver (Ph.D.) received an Understanding Modern Russia Grant from the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies to support research on his dissertation, “The Roots of Empire and Industry: The Soviet Union and the Global Political Economy of Rubber.”

Megan VanGorder (Ph.D.) received the Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award for 2020-2021.

2020

Justin Iverson (Ph.D.) received a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the Graduate School for 2019-2020. He successfully defended his dissertation, entitled “Slavery’s Soldiers: Arming Slave Revolts and Maroons in the British Atlantic, 1676-1823” (directed by Professor Aaron Fogleman) in the Spring of 2020. The Florida Historical Quarterly published Iverson’s article “Fugitives on the Front: Maroons in the Gulf Coast Borderlands War, 1812-1823.” He accepted a position with the Federal Government as an Air Force Historian and began work at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi.

JoAnn LoSavio (Ph.D.) successfully defended her dissertation “Modern Mandala: A Transnational History of Southeast Asian Youth from Burma, Malaya and Thailand, 1950-1970” (directed by Professor Trude Jacobsen) and accepted a job at Washington State University (Vancouver), as an Assistant Professor of History and Vancouver Coordinator for the RCI (Roots of Contemporary Issues) program. She also received the Outstanding Ph.D. Student for 2019-2020.

Alex Lundberg (M.A.) received the Outstanding M.A. Student for 2019-2020. He also received the Hugh Jameson Graduate Student Essay Prize for “The ‘Runcie Affair’: The Press and the Limitation of Cuban Self-Government, 1899-1902.”

Victor Garcia (M.A.) received a Rhoten A. Smith Assistantship.

Heather Darsie (M.A.) published “Our English Legal Forebearers and Their Contributions to the Practice of Law and American Jurisprudence: Sir Thomas More, Sir Edward Coke, and Sir William Blackstone” in the Northern Illinois University Law Review.

2019

Brown, Thommy (M.A.) received the Outstanding M.A. Student for 2018-19.

Choi, Heeyoung (Ph.D.) successfully defended her dissertation, "The Transnational Construction of National Music (Kugak): Musicking in the Korean Diaspora, 1903-1945 (E. Taylor Atkins, director).

Darsie, Heather (M.A.) has published a book entitled Anna, Duchess of Cleves: The King's 'Beloved Sister.'

Garcia, Victor (M.A.) received the Lunsford Fellowship for 2018-19.

Kwosek, Susan (Ph.D.) received the Dissertation Completion Fellowship for 2018-19. She successfully defended her dissertation, "'Voodoo' in the Black Atlantic, 1804-1915," on July 31, and will take up a position at South Carolina State University in fall 2019.

Luginbill, Kevin (Ph.D.) received the Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award for 2018-19.

2018

Choi, Heeyoung (Ph.D.) received the Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award for 2017-18. She has had papers accepted for presentation at the 9th World Congress of Korean Studies and the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies' 11th Annual Symposium.

Dressler, Nicole (Ph.D.) successfully defended her dissertation, "The 'Vile Commodity': Convict Servitude, Authority, and the Rise of Humanitarianism in the Anglo-American World, 1718-1809" (director Professor Aaron Fogleman), and will be a lecturer at College of William and Mary. She also received the James Shirley Prize for best essay submitted for publication by a graduate student ("'Enemies to Mankind': Penal Servitude, Authority, and Humanitarianism in the British Atlantic World").

Fleming, JoAnn (Ph.D.) received the Hugh Jameson Prize for best research essay in a graduate seminar ("The Campfire Girl and the American Girl").

Wojtkiewicz, William (M.A.) received the Outstanding M.A. Student for 2017-2018.