awards

Dept Head Mark Healey Receives Academic Leadership Award

Posted on April 24, 2026 by Parker, Heather A

The annual CLAS Faculty and Staff Awards recognize outstanding achievement across several categories.

The Academic Leadership Award honors exemplary leadership by an individual who oversees a CLAS department, school, center, institute, or program. At this year’s CLAS Faculty and Staff Awards, Department Head Mark Healey was recognized for his leadership in strengthening departmental climate, transparency, and academic success.

For the complete citation and list of award recipients, please see the UConn Today coverage at “CLAS Honors Faculty and Staff for Excellence in 2026.”

The Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era awards 2026 President’s Book Prize to Manisha Sinha for The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic

Posted on April 21, 2026April 23, 2026 by Parker, Heather A

The prize was awarded at the Organization of American Historians meeting in Philadelphia on April 17, 2026. The prize citation reads:

Following a multi-tiered selection process, the committee selected The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860–1920 by Manisha Sinha as the recipient of the SHGAPE President’s Book Prize.

Manisha Sinha’s The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic offers a sweeping and compelling reinterpretation of Reconstruction, significantly expanding both the temporal and geographic boundaries traditionally associated with the period. Sinha provides a major new synthesis of Reconstruction scholarship—one that will stand alongside the seminal works of Eric Foner and W. E. B. Du Bois as a benchmark for a new generation of historians. The book will serve as a central text in graduate seminars on nineteenth-century U.S. history for years to come. Grounded in extensive archival research but driven by a clear and persuasive argument about the broader scope and significance of Reconstruction, it will shape how historians and their students understand this critical era. It is a powerful and important work and fully deserving of the SHGAPE President’s Book Prize.

Lucas Ruiz ’23, inaugural Fellow of Oppenheimer Project, advocates for nuclear policy dialogue

Posted on April 7, 2026April 6, 2026 by Parker, Heather A

As a recent transfer student from Connecticut State Community College, Lucas Ruiz ’23 pursued his interest in history through courses with professors Alexis Dudden and Frank Costigliola – a decision that set him on a path that would eventually lead to publishing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, becoming the first-ever Fellow with the Oppenheimer Project, and convening meetings of world experts on nuclear weapons policy.

Now, as an Oppenheimer fellow, Ruiz analyzes the complex and often volatile relationship between China, Russia, and the U.S. by examining the leadership of each state.

“I think that the personalities and the individuals that lead these states are of paramount importance,” Ruiz says. “I have found that no two people have the exact same perception of the world. When thinking about how the United States can engage Russia, you have to think about how can the president of the United States engage the president of Russia?”

For the full article covering Lucas’ path through UConn to the Oppenheimer Project, please see UConn Today‘s “Alum Lucas Ruiz Examines Nuclear Policy Among Global Powers.”

Melanie Newport Wins Sharon Harris Book Award for This Is My Jail

Posted on April 23, 2023 by Weatherwax, Nicole

Prof. Melanie Newport won the Sharon Harris Book Award for, This Is My Jail: Local Politics and the Rise of Mass Incarceration, an analysis of Chicago and Cook County jails in the late 20th century that served as models around the nation for criminal justice reform. The Sharon Harris Book Award “recognizes scholarly depth and intellectual acuity and highlights the importance of humanities scholarship.”

The University of Pennsylvania Press called This Is My Jail, a “sweeping history of urban incarceration,” that centers jails as “critical sites of urban inequality that sustain the racist actions of the police and judges and exacerbate the harms wrought by housing discrimination, segregated schools, and inaccessible health care.”

Prof. Newport talked about her book on the recent podcast, “This Is My Jail: A Conversation with Melanie D. Newport.”

Brendan Kane Receives Erasmus + ICM Award

Posted on October 26, 2022March 30, 2026 by Weatherwax, Nicole

UConn History Professor, Brendan Kane and University College Dublin Professor, Marc Caball have been awarded funding through Erasmus + International Credit Mobility (a global scholarship and exchange program financed by the European Union and administered in Ireland by the Higher Education Authority) for their proposal entitled, “Digital Early Modern Ireland.” According to a post by University College Dublin, Brendan Kane and Marc Caball will each spend time at each other’s respective institutions to both develop and implement a digital strategy “for early modern Irish research centered on Léamh.org (a digital humanities project enabling engagement with early modern texts in the Irish language).”

Brendan Kane is a co-director of the digital humanities project Léamh.org and director of the Democracy and Dialogues Initiative at the UConn Human Rights Institute.

Manisha Sinha Honored with Pennington Award

Posted on June 1, 2022 by Holden, Constance

Professor Manisha Sinha is a 2021 awardee of the James C. Pennington Award, which will be formerly bestowed upon her during the 2022 award ceremony, taking place on June 1, 2022. The James C. Pennington Award, awarded by Heidelberg University’s Heidelberg Center for American Studies and Faculty of Theology, remembers James Pennington, a formerly enslaved pastor from the United States who received an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University, the first known person of African descent to earn one from a European institution. Sinha, a scholar of abolition, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, receives this award alongside Dr. Carol Anderson, a historian of 20th century Black freedom struggles.

The award ceremony will be marked by a discussion with the two fellows on “The Unfinished Work of Reconstruction: The Long and Ongoing Civil Rights Struggle in the United States.” The ceremony will be live tweeted from the Heidelberg Center for American Studies account. More information is available on the Heidelberg University website. Congratulations!

2022 Undergraduate Prize Day Winners

Posted on May 23, 2022May 23, 2022 by Holden, Constance

On April 29, the History Department celebrated the outstanding achievements of our students. We congratulate you!

Undergraduate History Excellence Award

Lisette Donewald

Tyler Joseph Sciortino

Maddalena and Joseph Perrella Scholarship Fund

Tyler Joseph Sciortino

Allen M. Ward Prize in Ancient History

Hannah Kallin

Karl Z. Trybus Undergraduate Award for Exceptional Work in Modern European History

Luca Di Cicco

Roger N. Buckley Award

Silas Cianci

Heather A. Parker Excellence in Historical Writing Award

Katherine King

Connecticut Celebration 350^th Scholarship

Sydney Gray

Sandra Rux Award

Brendon Dukett

Undergraduate Research Honors Jason Chang with Mentorship Award

Posted on April 19, 2022July 9, 2025 by Holden, Constance

The University of Connecticut’s Office of Undergraduate Research celebrated Jason Chang, Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies, with the annual Mentorship Excellence Award. This award, based on undergraduate student nominations and a selection committee, recognizes the faculty who go above and beyond to support and encourage students in their academic journeys. According to Karen Lau’ 25, Professor Jason Chang inspired them to be “unafraid of the unknown, to dig deeper to learn about my home state’s impact on Asian Americans, and to be bolder in my advocacy in my education reform.” For a professor as committed and compassionate as Jason Chang, this award is well-deserved. We look forward to the continued work that you will do to show students the power of advocacy, representation, and visibility. Congratulations!

Professor Chang received this award alongside Sarah Knutie, Assistant Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Mia Kawaida, a Ph.D. student in Animal Science. Please read the full article that details the tremendous impact of these three educators.

PhD Student Kathryn Angelica Wins Munson Scholarship

Posted on April 25, 2019February 9, 2022 by

The Department is pleased to share that first year doctoral student Kathryn Angelica received a fellowship from the Frank C. Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies at Mystic Seaport to take classes and conduct research this summer. The courses, of which Angelica will choose two, include: “America Goes to Sea,” Maritime History Survey Course, “American Maritime History Seminar,” or an independent research course using materials from the G. W. Blunt White Library. The Cora Mallory Munson Scholarship covers tuition and room/board for the summer.

PhD Nicole Breault Receives AHA Research Grant

Posted on April 23, 2019February 9, 2022 by

The Department is very pleased to share that Nicole Breault, a third year PhD student, has won a 2019 American Historical Associaton (AHA) Littleton-Griswold Research Grant. The grant supports research in US legal history and in the broader field of law and society. Nicole will be utilizing the funds to further her dissertation project, “The Night Watch of Early Boston: Law and Governance in Eighteenth-Century British America.”

For more information, please click here.