- Department of History
- Graduate
- Graduate Student Accomplishments
Graduate Student Accomplishments
Check out what our graduate students have been doing.
2023
Abiodun Ademiluwa (M.A. 2022) was admitted to the history Ph.D. program at Emory University with a multi- year fellowship. She will begin her studies there in the fall of 2023.
First-year Ph.D. student Jon Adsit received Title VIII and Fulbright funding through American Councils to attend a Russian language program in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in summer 2023.
Peter Alexander (M.A.) has been awarded a fellowship by the Inya Institute (a Council of American Overseas Research Center site) in order to carry out archival research for his M.A. thesis, “From Monarchy to Bourgeoisie: How Stewardship of the Shwedagon Pagoda Passed to Colonial Rangoon’s Burmese Elite.” This fellowship is funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. State Department.
J. Hollis Harris passed his Ph.D. candidacy examinations in March 2023. He presented a paper entitled “‘The Fair Hills of our Little Green Island’: Imagined Environments in Irish America, 1893-1910” at the Midwest Regional meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies. The paper was well received, and he was invited to talk about his research at a Clingen Conversation on the Irish Language in the USA at the University of Notre Dame. In June 2023, Hollis also was elected the graduate student representative to the executive of the American Conference for Irish Studies.
Ph.D. student Anna Henderson, along with history Professor Stan Arnold, received a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences “Issues in Race and Racism” research grant to work in South Carolina archives this summer.
Derick Waters (M.A.), while completing his first year of part-time studies at NIU, has managed to save two lives (that we know of) while working at his full-time job as a deputy sheriff in McHenry County — no kidding.
2022
LeNie Adolphson (Ph.D.) received the 2022 Maass Grant from the Manuscript Society, an international organization devoted to the collection, preservation, use and enjoyment of autographs and manuscripts. She also was awarded a Pre-Doctoral Research Grant from the American Association for the History of Nursing. The award is for her research on the history of Chicago’s Provident Hospital and its nurse training program. Only one such grant is awarded each year.
Josh Fulton (Ph.D.) was awarded the annual King V. Hostick Research Scholarship on Illinois History from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the Illinois State Historical Society. The award will support his dissertation, “Performance Patriotism: The State Council of Defense, the Illinois Women’s Committee, and the Role of the State in World War I Illinois.”
J. Hollis Harris (Ph.D.) presented papers at both the regional and national meetings of the American Conference for Irish Studies. The papers were entitled “‘By the strong hand’: A World of Violence Echoing in the Official Mind of Clan-na-Gael”; and “The Uninscribed Tomb and the Great Gael: The Politics of Death in Irish America, 1898-1904.”
Ph.D. candidate Alex Lundberg was awarded the Brazil Initiation Scholarship for 2022 by BRASA, the Brazilian Studies Association. The award is a travel grant that will allow Alex to establish contacts with Brazilian scholars and graduate students and conduct initial dissertation research in Brazil’s archives.
Kevin Luginbill successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation, “Building an Imperial World: Imperial Ideologies and the British Tariff Reform Movement, 1900-1914,” on May 11, 2022. He is set to receive his Ph.D. in August.
Daniel McCoy (Ph.D.) received a highly competitive Fulbright Award to conduct dissertation research in Indonesia during the 2022-23 academic year.
Megan Van Gorder (Ph.D. 2022) accepted a tenure-track job as an assistant professor in social sciences at Governors State University. She will begin there in the fall of 2022. To learn more about her time at NIU, check out this commencement spotlight.
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.
