2024 Winners 

Charles A. Beard Prize
Given by the Department for a senior thesis of distinction in any historical field or period.

Ali Zaher Mintsa Younes – The “Shiᶜi peasant” and the Colonel: Inventing the modern Shiᶜa sect under the mandate

Garrett Mattingly Prize
Given by the Department for a senior thesis of distinction in any historical field or period.

Lucy Brenner – Auxiliary Altars: The Intersection of Mobility, Identity, and Cult Practice Among the Auxilia of Imperial Roman Britain

 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.

Emmaline Singer – On the Path to Sanctity: The Spirituality of Colette of Corbie (1381-1447) and Her Reform of the Order of Saint Clare

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.

John Parides – Freedom Reconstructed National State Power, Capitalism, and the United States of America’s Crisis of Free Labor, 1862-1877

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.

Joanne Park – “A Prototype for the Nation” – Early Gay Coalition Building in the 1965 New York Review Board

Olivia Sieler – Law, Policy, and Culture: The History of Access for Disabled Students at the University of California, Berkeley, Barnard College, and Columbia University, 1962-1991

Albert Marion Elsberg Prize (two recipients awarded)
Given by the College for a sophomore, junior, or senior who has demonstrated excellence in modern history.

Margaret Meyerson – There and Back Again – The Enduring Impact of World War I in the Works and Lives of Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis, and on British Society between the World Wars

Mrinalini Sisodia Wadhwa – The Lost Manuscript and the “Unmasked” Missionary: Pondichéry Jesuit Contributions to Enlightenment and Colonial Fantasies of India

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.

Artem Ilyanok – “The Hamlet of Nations”: The Reagan Administration and the Battle for American Foreign Policy

Undergraduate Education Committee Prize 
The Undergraduate Education Committee Prize is given to a thesis of excellence written in any field of history.

Arjun Shreekumar – In Search of a New Communism: Caste and Class in Kerala, 1943-1969

Departmental Honors 2024

Jamie Bishop –  Rethinking the Most Notorious Slum in America: Five Points, Slumming, and the Immigrant Experience in Nineteenth-Century New York City

Ryan Bolin – Collector of Customs: Benjamin Lincoln’s Federalism in Action

Isabel Canalejo –  The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of the 1939 New York World’s Fair: Flushing Meadows as a “Living Site,” 1936-1967

Ali Zaher Minsta Younes –  The “Shiᶜi peasant” and the Colonel: Inventing the modern Shiᶜa sect under the mandate

Elektra Papathanasiou-Goldstein –  The Ousting of Boutros-Ghali and the American Unipolar Moment: The Deterioration of the UN-U.S. Relationship during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1989– 1997)

Hanes Rosenau –  Artifacts of Violence: Political Ephemera of the Troubles 1968-2000

Emmaline Singer –  On the Path to Sanctity: The Spirituality of Colette of Corbie (1381-1447) and Her Reform of the Order of Saint Clare

Mrinalini Sisodia Wadhwa – The Lost Manuscript and the “Unmasked” Missionary: Pondichéry Jesuit Contributions to Enlightenment and Colonial Fantasies of India

Bryley Williams –  The Wandering Congregation Spaces and Places of New York City’s Gay Synagogue, 1973 – 1979

Rory Wilson –  Úuyitpe hiwéeke c’íiqin: The Creation and Reception of Written Nez Perce in the 19th Century