Spring 2023 List of Accomplishments

We've been keeping busy--and this list is not exhaustive!

Student Accomplishments 

• Sekordri Ojo won an American Educational Research Association seed grant to continue her research into the history of American education.
• PhD student Ismael Biyashev successfully defended his dissertation, "Beyond Myths and Ruins: Archaeology and Nomadism in the Russian Empire and the Early USSR 1850-1920s," under the supervision of Professor Marina Mogilner.
• 2021 PhD graduate Libby Hearne won 2023 The Lerner-Scott Prize from the Organization of American Historians for producing the best doctoral dissertation in U.S. women’s history. Hearne’s dissertation was entitled, “Reframing Cure: Sexual Violence, Mental Health, and Feminist Activism, 1971-1997.”
• 2023 PhD graduate Ismael Biyashev accepted a position as Senior Fellow with the University of Michigan Society of Fellows.
• PhD student Kimberly Phuong Beaudreau, received a 2023 John Higham Research Fellowship from the Organization of American Historians for the dissertation she is currently writing titled “Economic Migrant or Refugee? Externalizing American Refugee and Asylum Policy, 1975–2000.”
• 2023 PhD graduate Ismael Biyashev won an internship grant from the Association for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) for the summer of 2023, working as an intern for Ab Imperio.
• PhD student Caterina Scalvedi presented “Rethinking Colonialism in Interwar Europe: Legal Scholars, Education, and the ‘Native Question’ in Fascist Italy’s Empire,” at UIC’s Institute for the Humanities.
• Noe Gallegos won the Gordon Lee Goodman Award for Distinction in Undergraduate Studies.
• Krystian Kuprowski won the Lilian Edinger Scholarship.
• Lucero Rojas-Torres won the David Stahl and Karol Weigelt Prize.
• PhD students Zichan Qiu and Hanna Deikunwon each won a UIC Award for Graduate Research.
• PhD students Emily Glassmeyer, Kaimara Herron-July, and Liliana Macias were all recipients of the Provost's Graduate Internship Award for summer positions with the project “Listening for the Long Haul: A Living History of Long COVID,” led by Prof. Jennifer Brier.
• PhD student Frankee Lyons won a Dean’s Scholar Fellowship.

Faculty Accomplishments

• Dr. Danielle Beaujon, a Bridge to Faculty Postdoctoral Fellow, accepted an offer to join UIC as a tenure-track assistant professor starting in Fall 2023 with a 25% appointment in History.
• Prof. Robert Johnston was named a semi-finalist for the 2024 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching.
• Prof. Fredy Gonzalez was awarded a grant from the Japan Foundation Los Angeles to spend the fall semester in Kansai in an intensive Japanese language program. The language skills will assist his research on Japanese migration to Latin America.
• Prof. Fredy Gonzalez won a distinguished Silver Circle Award for Excellence in Teaching, one of UIC's highest honors recognizing teaching. The Silver Circle Award is selected by a committee of graduating seniors.
• Prof. John Abbott won the 2023 Shirley A. Bill Award for Excellence in Teaching.
• Prof. Bao Bui was named UIC Honors College Instructor of the Year.

Student & Faculty Publications/Appearances

January 2023

• Prof. Jennifer Brier appeared on WBEZ’s “Reset” as part of a panel discussion on the Food and Drug Administration’s proposal to ease blood donation restrictions for gay and bisexual men.
• Prof. Hayley Negrin published an article in The William and Mary Quarterly titled  "Cockacoeske's Rebellion: Nathaniel Bacon, Indigenous Slavery, and Sovereignty in Early Virginia.”
• PhD Student Sohini Mukhopadhyay published the article, "A 'Fallen' Woman's Autobiography" in the 2019 proceedings of the Indian History Congress.
• PhD student Polina Popova published a blog post for the Princeton University Library Blog titled "An Image of Japan and Its People in 1920s Soviet Children's Literature.”

February 2023

• Prof. Jeff Sklansky published an article in American Prospect titled "The Working Class Roots of 'Woke Capital.'"
• Prof. Jon Connolly published an article in Law and History Review titled "Re-Reading Morant Bay: Protest, Inquiry, and Colonial Rule,"
• Prof. Jonathan Daly released a co-authored book, Seven Myths of the Russian Revolution (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett, 2023).
•  Prof. Jeff Sklansky published  "The Work of Retirement," in the International Review of Social History.
• PhD student Anindita Ghosh published "Nationalism without a Nation: What Being Indian Means for Residents of Merged Bangladesh Residents" in Scroll, a premier newspaper in India.

March 2023

• PhD student Jeff Nichols was interviewed for an article in Business Insider about a 1948 photo that has recently gone viral.
• Prof. Robert Johnston edited a section in the March 2023 edition of the Journal of American History on the theme, "Teaching in Alternative Spaces."  At the heart of the section, is an interchange titled “Abolition and Liberation: An Interchange on Teaching behind the Walls.”
• PhD student Polina Popova hosted two episodes of the New Books Network podcast, interviewing Ellena Goodwin about her book Translating England into Russian and speaking with Megan Swift about her book Picturing the Page.

April 2023

• Affiliated faculty member, Prof. Sandy Sufian published "The Prejudicial Logic of Productivity" in Inside Higher Ed.
• Prof. Jon Connolly publishing an article in Comparative Studies in Society and History titled: "Antislavery, 'Native Labour,' and the Turn to Indenture in British Colonial Natal, 1842-1860."
• Prof. Clare S. Kim was selected as a UIC Institute for the Humanities Faculty Fellow for the 2023-2024 academic year for the project: "The Modern Subject: Transpacific Exchanges and the Racial Politics of Mathematics in America.”
• Prof. Joaquin M. Chavez was selected as a UIC Institute for the Humanities Faculty Fellow for the 2023-2024 academic year for the project: “Imagining Peace in El Salvador: Intellectuals, Knowledge Production, and the Cold War in Latin America."
• Prof. Rama Mantena released a book titled: “Provincial Democracy: Political Imaginaries at the End of Empire in Twentieth-Century South India with Cambridge University Press.

May 2023

• Professor Young Richard Kim published “Paparrigopoulos on Continuity, Constantine, and the Council of Nicaea” in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies 41.
• Professor Laura Hostetler co-authored an op-ed (with AHA president Jim Grossman) in the Austin American-Statesman on Texas's SB 18, which would eliminate tenure at public higher education institutions in Texas. The article is titled: “How to destroy a great university.”