Congratulations to all of our graduate students who won prizes, received research grants and fellowships and presented and published papers in 2008-2009.

Prizes

Greg Domber has been awarded the 2009 Betty M. Unterberger Prize for Best Dissertation on United States Foreign Policy from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations for his 2008 GW Ph.D. dissertation "Supporting the Revolution: America, Democracy, and the End of the Cold War in Poland, 1981-1989." He is currently teaching at the University of Northern Florida.

Natalie Deibel won the university-wide Philip Amsterdam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for 2008-2009.

Heater Masterton Shapiro, a 2002 GW MA graduate, was nominated teacher of the year at Langley High School, where she teaches honors world history.

Publications

Malgorzata Gnoinska published a book chapter, “Poland, Intra-Communist Dynamics, and the Second Geneva Conference on Laos, 1961-1962,” in Christopher Goscha and Karine Laplante, eds., L’échec de la paix? L’Indochine entre les deux accords de Genève (1954-1963), Paris: Les Indes Savantes. (Summer 2009).

Phil Muehlenbeck, a GW 2008 PhD, received a contract from Oxford University Press for his book (which only necessitated slight modifications to his dissertation), "Betting on the Africans: John F. Kennedy's Courting of African Nationalist Leaders."

Elizabeth Charles wrote “The Geneva Summit 1985;” “Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty 1987;” “Able Archer 1983”; “The Evil Empire Speech, March 1983;” “The Strategic Defense Initiative” for the Encyclopedia of the Cold War. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Michael Landis published "A Champion Had Come: William Pitt Fessenden and the Republican Party, 1854-60," in American Nineteenth Century History 9 (2008).

Richard Boles published a book review of Alan Sell, Enlightenment, Ecumenism, and Evangel: Theological Themes and Thinkers, 1550-2000 for The Heythrop Journal, and also wrote “African Americans” on the State of Pennsylvania Heritage Society’s website for the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.

Gregory Tomlin co-authored a book, The Gods of Diyala: Transfer of Command in Iraq (Texas A&M University Press, 2008).

Stephen T. Neese, a  GW PhD, published Algernon Sidney Crapsey: The Last of the Heretics. Newcastle, Eng.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008

Chris Mason co-authored an article in The Atlantic Monthly in October 2008, "All Counterinsurgency is Local.” This was a condensed version of a longer article he  published recently in International Security, 32/4 (Spring 2008) titled " No Sign until the Burst of Fire: Understanding the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier."

Cynthia Kahn, a PhD student specializing in the history of medicine, co-authored the chapter “Information Seeking Strategies in Public Health,” in Essentials of public health biology: A companion guide for the study of Pathophysiology. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, October 2008

Chris Hickman published book reviews in White House Studies and Congress and the Presidency.

Rick Moss coauthored an article, "Presidential Scholars and Presidential Recordings" in White House Studies, 8, Issue 2 (2008).

Conferences

Sara Berndt presented papers at the Society for the History of American Foreign Relations conference and at the World History Association conference in June 2009.

Margaret Reed presented a paper at the University of Maryland Graduate History Conference in January 2009. The paper was based on work with Professor Linda Levy Peck and the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Malgorzata Gnoinska presented at The Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington D.C., May 2009; the Organization of American Historians conference; and an International Conference, China and the World in Mao's Last Decade, 1966-1976, Hong Kong, China, January, 2009.

Elizabeth Charles, Malgorzata Gnoinska and Yvette Chin organized a panel in which they presented papers on “Talking in the Margins: Challenges in Communication and the Making of US Foreign Policy in the Cold War” at the 2009 annual Organization of American Historians conference.

Justin Pope presented a paper at the Biannual Society of Early Americanists Conference and gave a presentation at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Stacy Bondurant presented “Rejection, Selection, and Adaptation: New Perspectives on United States Immigration History” at the 2009 annual Organization of American Historians conference.

Helena Kaler had two papers accepted for the Middle East Studies Conference in November 2009.

Andrea O’Brien presented papers at the LSE-GW-UCSB Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War, and at “Cold War International History Studies: A Joint Forum by Ph.D. Students from China and the United States,” Shanghai, China. July, 2009. She also had  a paper based on her dissertation accepted for presentation at the 2010 conference of the Organization of American Historians.

Mary McPartland presented “The Farm Hall 'Guests': Their Transformation from Enemy Scientists to Postwar Partners in West Germany,” Cold War International History Studies: A Joint Forum by Ph.D. Students from China and the United States, Shanghai, China. July, 2008.  She also presented a paper at the LSE-GW-UCSB Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War.

Michael Landis presented a paper, “‘Though the Heavens Fall’: Slavery, Northern Democrats, and the Destruction of the Union,” at the Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting in 2009.                                                                               

Cynthia Kahn helped run a half-day learning institute at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting, October 2008 on Evidence-based medicine: Finding and appraising relevant resources

Jennie Meade presented a paper at the  2009 American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Denver.  She also coordinated and moderated a program on "'Digging' Legal History: Using Exhumation and Innovative Forensic Science Techniques to Verify Historical Legal Events" for the American Association of Law Libraries, July 2009, Washington, DC. She also  mounted an exhibit in the GW Law Library entitled: “From Coutumes to the Code Civil: The Law of France” featuring from the collection 18th-century coutumiers, Code de Henri III, ordonnances de Louis XIV, and a first edition of Napoleon's Code Civil (1804) among other works

Chris Hickman presented papers at the “The Legacy of 1968: An Interdisciplinary Conference,” Chestnut Hill College, April 2008, and at the Policy History Conference, St. Louis, May 29-June 1, 2008, the Great Lakes History Conference, Grand Valley State University, Michigan, October 2 008, and the Film and History Conference, Chicago, October, 2008

Varad Mehta presented two conference papers at the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies annual conference, Montreal. October, 2008, and the East-Central/American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies annual conference, Washington, D.C. November, 2008

Nathan Jones presented at the International Graduate Conference on the Cold War, University of California, Santa Barbara. May, 2008.

Research grants and fellowships

Lindsay Moore received the CCWH/ Berkshire Conference Award to support her dissertation research. The award was presented at the American Historical Association meeting in 2009.  She has been given a $25,000 Mellon Dissertation Fellowship for the 2009-2010 academic year.

Patrick Funiciello, Research Fellowship (2009), Directorate General of Archives-Luso-American Development Foundation Research Fellowship.

Sara Berndt, Dissertation Fellowship (AY 2009-10), American Association of University Women.

Michael Landis received research grants from the Cosmos Club, the Gilder-Lehrman Institute, the New York Historical Society, and White House Historical Society.

Margaret Reed, Research Fellowship, Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, DC chapter, and Teaching Fellowship (AY 2009-10), Northern Virginia Community College.

Shaadi Khoury, Fulbright IIE Fellowship to Syria (AY 2009-2010).

Justin Pope, Research Fellowship, Center for New World Comparative Studies, Carter Brown Library; Research Fellowship, Massachusetts Historical Society; Research Grant, Cosmos Club Foundation, Washington, D.C.; and the Visiting Dissertation Fellowship (Spring 2009), McNeil Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

Andrea O’Brien, Travel Grant, Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas

Richard Boles, Graduate Tuition Fellowship (2009-10), Daughters of the American Revolution, DC chapter.

Mary McPartland, Language and Travel Grant, German Academic Exchange Service—DAAD (Summer 2010).