2024 History Department Commencement Ceremony

Commencement Weekend took place May 17-19. Congratulations to our graduate and undergraduate degree recipients! 

Congratulations to our 2024 Graduates

May 29th, 2024

Class of 2024 History Majors:

• Amna Arain 

• Clare Bacak 

• Winifred Belk 

• Kirsten Bell 

• Max Creamer 

• Sophia Crook 

• Maya Nikolov Doichev 

• Rianna Sophie Ehrenreich 

• Ronald Faris 

• Zoë Felfle 

• Rose Frank 

• Aydan Fusco 

• Hannah Meredith Grable 

• Alicia Haar Michael 

• Paul Hardy 

• Alexander Junquera 

• Isabella Frances Kelly 

• Sophia Krackov 

• Amelia Kwak 

• Peihan Li 

• Kai Jia Liu 

• Yutong Lu 

• Margaret Aurora 

• MacAdam 

• Clarice Speight McKee 

• Nadia Morales 

• Ronin Ross 

• Sophia Samantaroy 

• Georgia Sankey 

• Junlin Zhang 

• Mingjie Zheng 

• Luis Zhingri

Class of 2024 History Minors: 

• Joanna Argudo

• Caitlin Canario

• Matthew Daly

• Lael Dratfield

• Daniel Evans

• Elana Greenberg

• Patrick Jacob 

• Cameron McCabe

• James Mills

• Jack Petrarca

• Casey Press

• James Schmidt

• Eliot Jihun Alaska Smith

• Aidan Sullivan

• Tyler Walter

• Sander Wilson 

• Hannah Zerman

Undergraduate Prizes and Awards in History

Coates Senior Honors Essay Award To the senior student who has written the best senior essay in the department this year. 

Amelia Kwak "Corazón Femenino: The Feminine Archetype as a Tool for Political Agency in Revolutionary Nicaragua, 1970-1990" 

N.B. Ellison Prize To the member of the senior class concentrating in history who has done the best work in the department. 

Ronald Faris 

History Seminar Prize To the History major who has written the best HIS 300W-level Seminar paper. 

Jonah Staples "Child Welfare at a Crossroads: Marisol v. Giuliani and the Making of the ACS" 

Hugh Mackenzie Memorial Prizes To a first year woman who has shown the highest achievement and interest in a history course, and to the first year woman who has shown the greatest improvement in a history course. 

Nora Chen, Emily English, Alayna Leestma, Elyse Roepe 

Eugene H. Webb Prize To the undergraduate student who has done the best work in a course dealing with the Black experience in America. 

Paola Almendarez 

Herbert Lawrence Sadinsky Memorial Prize To the best undergraduate or graduate history paper on an aspect of World War II. 

Max Creamer "Charles Coughlin and the American Fascism Question" 

Christopher Lasch Fellow in History

Each year, the department invites a select group of senior History majors to become Christopher Lasch Fellows. Lasch Fellows enroll in the demanding graduate level course Problems in Historical Analysis during the fall semester of their senior year.

Kirsten Bell, Zoë Felfle, Amelia Kwak, Clarice Speight McKee, Sophia Samantaroy 

Phi Beta Kappa

Kirsten Bell, Ronin Ross, Sophia Samantaroy

Phi Alpha Theta

Kirsten Bell, Rianna Ehrenreich, Kai Jia Liu, Yutong Lu, Clarice Speight McKee, Luis Zhingri 

Congratulations to our Honors Program participants!

The Colloquium held on May 3, 2024, was the culmination of this year's Honors program and proof of the innovative historical research being carried out by our students.

Honors Students and Papers

Kirsten Bell "Challenging the Stereotype of the Witch: Medea in Fifteenth-Century Burgundy" 

Max Creamer "Charles Coughlin and the American Fascism Question" 

Ronald Faris "Imitato and Milites Christi: Pain, Suffering, and Sacrifice Through Early and Medieval Christianity" 

Amelia Kwak "Corazón Femenino: The Feminine Archetype as a Tool for Political Agency in Revolutionary Nicaragua, 1970-1990" 

Clarice Speight McKee "I Want to Believe: The Role of Prester John in Medieval Europe, 1200-1400" 

Ronin Ross "The Reich Bishop and the Superintendent: Two Faces of the Kirchenkampf and the Limits of Gleichschaltungin Interwar Germany, 1933-1937" 

Graduate Degrees

MA Awarded:

• Zach Carmichael 

• Mauricio Garza 

• Daniel Robb 

• Emmarae Stein

PhD Awarded:

• Sheila Foster "Framing Vision: A Biography of Beaumont Newhall and The History of Photography" 

• Rhianna Gordon "Dangerous Children: Orphans in Nineteenth-Century New York" 

• Marianne Kupin-Lisbin "The Illusion of Dissidence: the Virgin Mary, Rome, and Catholicism in Seventeenth Century Bosnia"

Graduate Prizes and Awards in History 

Willson Havelock Coates Book Award To the graduate student having among other qualifications, a conspicuous gift for historical imagination and the capacity for sustained and accurate research (in British history, European intellectual history, or philosophy of history) Daniel McDermott 

Sanford Elwitt Memorial Prize To a graduate student in European history for research and travel in memory of Professor Sanford Elwitt Daniel McDermott 

Harkins Prize A prize in memory of William F. Harkins, Jr. to a graduate student who has written the best seminar paper Zach Carmichael 

Donald Marks 'Dexter Perkins Prize' This prize is to perpetuate the name of Dexter Perkins and to encourage and assist a worthy graduate student in his/her cultural and intellectual development Emmarae Stein, Mauricio Garza 

Meyers Graduate Teaching Award To a graduate student who has excelled in teaching Beom Mo Koo

David Bruce Parker Memorial Prize To the graduate student who best represents the dedication and courage which characterized David's participation in the graduate program Elizabeth Sapere 

Dorothy Rosenberg-Passer Graduate Fellowship For the support of a graduate student pursuing a master's degree Vincent Kindfuller, Emmarae Stein 

Lina and A. William Salomone Prize To the graduate student who has done outstanding work in European history Jeffrey William Baron 

Glyndon VanDeusen Award To support travel and dissertation research and writing for a fourth-year history graduate student, Lizzy Carr, Beom Mo Koo 

Aida DiPace Donald Fellowship To support a graduate fellowship in American History Katelyn Getchel, Sarabeth Rambold 

Dr. Bruce F. Pauley Research Fellowship To support graduate student research travel, with preference for students pursuing archival research in Europe Claire Becker, Lauren Davis 

University Commencement

For more information on commencement, visit the University of Rochester's Commencement page.  

Graduation Photo Collection 

To view the undergraduate commencement photos, go to https://rochester.box.com/s/48qs7ymt07thfc3a05fr9xksjk5oxvyw.

To view the graduate commencement photos, go to https://rochester.box.com/s/mdzh801itjklhu32qlk1v52ps5nbrlhv.