The Undergraduate Program
Thesis Prizes and Honors
2023 Winners
Charles A. Beard Prize
Given by the Department for a senior thesis of distinction in any historical field or period.
Garrett Mattingly Prize
Given by the Department for a senior thesis of distinction in any historical field or period.
Crystal Foretia – The Color of Intimacy: Marriage, Passing, and the Legal Strategies of Afro-Creole Women in Antebellum New Orleans
Lily Prize
Given by the Department for the best senior thesis in history on a non-U.S. topic. Established by James P. Shenton in memory of his mother.
Robbert van Batenburg – Alexandre Kojève and his Quest to Actualize the ‘Universal and Homogenous State’: A Theory of Droit and its Application at the ‘End of History’
Herbert H. Lehman Prize
Given to a General Studies student with an outstanding record of accomplishment in history courses at Columbia. Preference given to those with substantial coursework in U.S. History.
Chanler Historical Prize (two recipients awarded)
Given by the College for the best essay submitted by a senior on a topic dealing with the history of the American civil government.
Philip Shen – Asserting Their Racial Order: The Origins of The Los Angeles Chinese Massacre of 1871
Albert Marion Elsberg Prize (two recipients awarded)
Given by the College for a sophomore, junior, or senior who has demonstrated excellence in modern history.
Elizabeth Concepcion – From Autonomy to Internationalism: Quarantines, the Hajj, and Ottoman-Egyptian Relations, 1830-1870
Alexandra Kirk – “The Defiance of a Flower:” Women’s Participation in Thailand’s Movement for Democracy (1973-1976)
Allen J Willen Memorial Prize
The prize is awarded to the Columbia College student who writes the best seminar paper on a contemporary American political problem.
Cole Cahill – The Limits of Cooperation – Confronting Privatization at Limited-Equity Housing Cooperatives in New York City
Undergraduate Education Committee Prize
The Undergraduate Education Committee Prize is given to a thesis of excellence written in any field of history.
Dominy Gallo – Public Women, Private Vice: Resisting and Reforming the State Regulation of Sex Work in 1940s Algiers
Departmental Honors 2023
Victoria Borlando – Finding the “International Word”: Artists of the Historical Avant-Garde and Uniting Interwar Europe
Pablo Drake – Forgotten Prisoners – Spanish Internment Practices and Military Culture during the Rif War, 1909-1927
Hana Gallagher – “To live and dye in the state of Grace and perfection”: Navigating Catholic Space in the Last Wills and Testaments of Ireland and Mexico, 1553-1699
Lorenzo Garcia – François de Sales (1567-1622), the Catholic Reformation, and the “Love of God” – Reform and Theology in Early Modern Catholicism
Jack Hietpas – Islands of the Poor: Single-Room Occupancy Housing on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, 1930-1990
Andi Honeycutt – Slow Creatures of Attachment: Changing Worldviews After the Abolition of Slavery in the Family of Charles Colcock Jones, Sr., 1837-1892
Olivia Jenkins – “Brotherhood and Unity” Among the Sisterhood: The Anti-Fascist Women’s Front (AFŽ) and the State-Building Project of Postwar Socialist Yugoslavia
Samuel Levine – “Such a Place as Atlantis”: Biafran Propaganda, Diplomacy, and Identity, 1966 – 1970
Sophia Macomber – A Most Spectacular Scandal: Changing Dynamics of Female Bodies, State, and Cult from the Late Roman Republic to the Early Principate
Daragh McMahon – The Test of Transition – The UN Administration of Cambodia (1992-1993)
Caitlin Mulvihill – Disconnected: Accessing The Obscured Legacy of The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Cyber Operations
Reagan Schweppe – Between Life and Death: Early Twentieth-Century Representations of Nature at the American Museum of Natural History and Bronx Zoological Park
Karuna Vikram – Patent Politics – The Pharmaceutical Industry, Technology Transfer, and the Fight for India’s 1970 Patent Act
Luna Wang – Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance: A History of ESG Standardization from 1970s to the Present
Mizia Wessel – Beyond the Vote: Black Women’s Klan Testimonies in the Context of the Federal South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871-1872
Max Wilson – The psychosocial devastation of cannons during the Hundred Years’ War
Samuel Yelnosky – Views from the Co-Op: Reconsidering Delta Cooperative Farm
Annarosa Zampaglone – To Claim a Colony: The Evolution and Impact of Italian Colonial Land Laws in Eritrea from 1884 to 1907