Columbia University
The Graduate Program
Annual Newsletter
July, 2021
We welcome our incoming Ph.D. candidates for Fall 2020!
East Asia
Sally Greenland (Bachelor of Business, Queensland University of Technology; MFA, New York Film Academy; MA, Columbia University; MSc, London School of Economics)
IGH
Ifadha Sifar (BA, New York University in Abu Dhabi)
Latin America History
Rosa Mantilla (MA, Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales)
Medieval Europe
Claire Dwyer (BA, Pomona College)
Charles Steinman (BA, Brown University)
Middle East History
Janna Aladdin (BA, Rutgers; MA, New York University)
Janina Santer (BA, Universitaet Hamburg; MA, American University of Beirut)
Modern European History
Julia Burke (BA, University of California Berkeley)
Rochelle Malcom (BA, University of Nottingham)
Zinaida Osipova (BS, Northeast Louisiana University; MA, Miami University)
Marie Robin (BA, American University of Paris; MA, Durham University)
South Asia History
Kamini Masood (BA, Lafayette College)
Anusha Sundar (BA, University of Delhi; MA, Jawaharlal Nehru University)
United States History
Josias Agustin Mendez (BA, City College of New York, CUNY)
Juliana DeVaan (BA, Columbia University; MA, New York University)
Samuel Niu (BA, Princeton University)
Seokju Oh (BA, Seoul National University; MA, Seoul National University)
Kayla Smith (BA, Washington University in St. Louis)
Jordan Villegas (BA, Harvard College)
Ph.D.s Conferred in 2020-2021
Azarbadegan, Zeinab. Contested sovereignty between the Ottomans, the Qajars, and the British in Ottoman Iraq (1831-1905). Sponsor: Rashid Khalidi Beckhart Coppinger, Sarah. High in the city: A history of drug use in Mexico City 1960-1980. Sponsor: Pablo Piccato Giordani, Angela. Making Falsafa in modern Egypt: Towards a history of Islamic philosophy in the twentieth century. Sponsor: Marwa Elshakry Golaszewski, Devon. Reproductive labors: Local expertise and biomedical legibility, Mali 1935-1999. Sponsor: Gregory Mann Hidalgo Garza, Sara. The small universe of social protection: Labor, underemployment and assistance in Mexico's welfare state, 1917-1970. Sponsor: Pablo Piccato Jones, Christopher. Power and elite competition in the neo-Assyrian empire, 745-612 B.C. Sponsor: Marc Van de Mieroop Katz, Jordan. Jewish midwives, medicine and the boundaries of knowledge in early modern Europe, 1650-1800. Sponsor: Elisheva Carlebach Lawson, Owain. Power failures: Engineers and the Litani River, 1918-1978. Sponsor: Marwa Elshakry Levine, Zachary. The illuminating case: The case study method in the fin-de-Siecle French brain and mind sciences. Sponsor: Samuel Moyn McFarlane, Wallace. Slavery, pollution, and politics on Texas' Trinity River. Sponsor: Karl Jacoby Monroe, William. The trials of Pope Formosus. Sponsor: Robert Somerville Morris, John. The acculturation of transatlantic army officers through subterranean practices, rituals, and codes, 1815-1945. Sponsor: Adam Tooze Ng Tam, Yung Hua. A transpacific Caribbean: Chinese migration, U.S. imperialism, and the making of modern Colombia. Sponsor: Mae Ngai Purcell, James. Parsing truth in Merovingian Gaul: Evidence and the early medieval critic. Sponsor: Adam Kosto Roady, Peter. The national security state that wasn't. Sponsor: Matthew Jones Somotan, Titilola. In the wider interests of Nigeria': Lagos and the making of federal Nigeria, 1941-76. Sponsor: Mamadou Diouf Subramanian, Divya. Global townscape: The rediscovery of urban life in the late twentieth century. Sponsor: Susan Pedersen Woker, Madeline. Empire of inequality: The politics of taxation in the French empire, 1900-1950s. Sponsor: Susan Pederson and Emmanuelle Saada
Congratulations to all those who successfully defended their dissertations in 2020-2021!
Azarbadegan, Zeinab. Contested sovereignty between the Ottomans, the Qajars, and the British in Ottoman Iraq (1831-1905)
Sponsor: Rashid Khalidi
Beckhart Coppinger, Sarah. High in the city: A history of drug use in Mexico City 1960-1980
Sponsor: Pablo Piccato
Glasserman, Aaron. Hui nation: Islam and Muslim politics in modern China
Sponsor: Madeleine Zelin
Giordani, Angela. Making Falsafa in modern Egypt: Towards a history of Islamic philosophy in the twentieth century
Sponsor: Marwa Elshakry
Heniford, Kellen. Slavery is slavery: Early American mythmaking and the invention of the free state
Sponsor: Stephanie McCurry
Hidalgo Garza, Sara. The small universe of social protection: Labor, underemployment and assistance in Mexico’s welfare state, 1917-1970
Sponsor: Pablo Piccato
Jones, Christopher. Power and elite competition in the neo-Assyrian empire, 745-612 B.C.
Sponsor: Marc Van de Mieroop
Lawson, Owain. Power failures: Engineers and the Litani River, 1918-1978
Sponsor: Marwa Elshakry
Levine, Zachary. The illuminating case: The case study method in the fin-de-Siecle French brain and mind sciences
Sponsor: Samuel Moyn
Marris, Caroline. ‘The Silver Sea’ and the nation-state: The multifaceted geopolitics of the early modern English channel
Sponsor: Christopher Brown
Matthews, Adam. Sacred space and legal practice in Catalonia & Southern France, 850-1100
Sponsor: Adam Kosto
McElroy, Micah. The disruption of philanthropy in the San Francisco Bay area, 1945-2010
Sponsor: Elizabeth Blackmar
McFarlane, Wallace. Slavery, pollution, and politics on Texas’ Trinity River
Sponsor: Karl Jacoby
Monroe, William. The trials of Pope Formosus
Sponsor: Robert Somerville
Morris, John. The acculturation of transatlantic army officers through subterranean practices, rituals, and codes, 1815-1945
Sponsor: Adam Tooze
Ng Tam, Yung Hua. A transpacific Caribbean: Chinese migration, U.S. imperialism, and the making of modern Colombia
Sponsor: Mae Ngai
Padilla- Rodriguez, Ivón. Undocumented youth: The labor, education, and rights of migrant Latinx children in twentieth-century America
Sponsor: Mae Ngai
Purcell, James. Parsing truth in Merovingian Gaul: Evidence and the early medieval critic
Sponsor: Adam Kosto
Roady, Peter. The national security state that wasn’t
Sponsor: Matthew Jones
Schwartz, Joshua. The life of pictures: Charles Dana Gibson, John Sloan, and the making of modern Americans 1883-1925
Sponsor: Elizabeth Blackmar
Subramanian, Divya. Global townscape: The rediscovery of urban life in the late twentieth century
Sponsor: Susan Pedersen
Woker, Madeline. Empire of inequality: The politics of taxation in the French empire, 1900-1950s
Sponsor: Susan Pederson and Emmanuelle Saada
Dissertation Write-up Fellowships Awarded for the 2018-19 Academic Year (Update in progress)
Doris G. Quinn Fellowship
Brooks Swett
Noelle Turtur
Antonina Woodsum
Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
Tamar Menashe
Harriet Zuckerman Dissertation Completion Fellowship
Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship
CES/Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship
Lowenheim History Fellowship
Fellowships, Awards, Grants, & Babies (Update in progress)
Halimat Somotan has started a pre-doctoral fellowship at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies, at the University of Virginia.
Heath Rojas, a first-year doctoral student, won the Raymond J. Cunningham Prize for the best article published in a history department journal by an undergraduate. His winning article, titled “A Model of Revolutionary Regicide: The Role of Seventeenth-Century English History in the Trial of King Louis XVI,” appeared in Herodotus in Spring 2018.
Madeline Woker was named a Spring 2019 fellow of the Camargo Foundation Core Program, and her article “Edwin Seligman, initiator of global progressive public finance” will be published in the Journal of Global History in November 2018.
Amanda Martin-Hardin published an article (titled “Nature in Black and White: Summer Camps and Racialized Landscapes in the Photography of Gordon Parks”) in the journal Environmental History.
The Heyman Center for the Humanities named doctoral candidates Liz Dolfi (Religion), Alma Igra (History), Paul Katz (History), Warren Kluber (Theatre), and Emily Rutherford (History) as its 2018-2019 graduate student fellows.
The National Science Foundation awarded grants supporting the dissertation research of four GSAS doctoral students: David Alfaro Serrano (Economics), Eduardo Romero Dianderas (Anthropology), Aaron Plasek (History), and Anna Schirrer (Anthropology).
Conor Wilkinson won the Graduate Student Best Paper Prize at the South East Regional Seminar in African Studies & Southeast Africanist Network Annual Joint Meeting, for his paper “Ancestors and Family Life in Eastern and Southern Tanzania at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.”
Robin Reich won the prize for Best Student Paper (for “Nearly Gold and Nearly Perfect? Meaning and Materiality of Copper-Alloy in Twelfth-Century Sicily”) from the Medieval Academy of America at its 2018 Annual Meeting.
Benjamin Serby published an article (“The Dialectical Liberalism of Richard Hofstadter”) in the journal Society.
A group of Columbia faculty, librarians, and students—including doctoral candidates Zeinab Azarbadegan (History), Mahmood Gharavi (Religion), and Sadegh Ansar (Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies)—received a $500,000 grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources to digitize the university’s collection of Islamic manuscripts and paintings.
An award from the National Science Foundation will support the dissertation research of History Ph.D. candidate Sean O’Neil, who is studying the history of science in early modern Europe.
Baby Historians