Defenses
Four graduate students defended their PhD dissertations in the last year:
Kevin Bird defended “From the Field to the Shop Floor: The Black Freedom Struggle and Its Challengers in McComb, Mississippi” under the supervision of Paul Ortiz.
Richard Brust defended “The Pompano Boys: How Florida’s ‘Little Scottsboro Case’ Led to a Revolution in Criminal Justice” with Elizabeth Dale.
Andréa Ferreira defended “The Making of a Brazilianist: Gilberto Freyre’s Formative Years in the United States” with supervisor Jeffrey Needell.
David Meltsner defended “School Politics and the Making of the School-To-Prison Pipeline in New York City, 1968-1980” under the supervision of Lauren Pearlman.
Placements
The department’s PhD candidates and alumni accepted the following teaching positions in the past year:
PhD candidate Timothy Blanton has accepted a teaching position at Westminster School in Connecticut, one of the country’s premier private schools.
Roberto Chauca Tapia (PhD, 2015) accepted a tenure-track position in the History Department at the University of Sydney in Australia, effective Fall 2022.
Luc Houle (PhD, 2021) is now teaching at the Ohana Institute, a private high school in Panama Beach City.
Raja Rahim (PhD, 2021) was appointed Assistant Professor of African American History at Appalachian State University (tenure-track).
Admissions
The Department welcomes six new PhD students and five master’s students.
Miguel Torres-Yunda, Aaya Kingsbury, and Peter Bradshaw (supervisor Associate Professor Heather Vrana) are entering the doctoral program to work on Latin American History.
Joining the European History section are Reese Whitely (supervisor Professor Norman Goda), Sercan Batum (supervisor Professor Florin Curta), and Zachary Young (supervisor Associate Professor Nina Caputo).
Four students enter the master’s program after finishing UF undergraduate degrees in History through the 4/1 combined BA/MA program. They are Davis Elordi (supervisor Assistant Professor Max Deardorff), Ronan Hart (supervisor Professor Paul Ortiz), Shannon Scott (supervisor Professor Goda), and Briana Wiggins (supervisor Associate Professor Anton Matytsin). The program also welcomes Lance Maulsby, who will write under Professor Curta’s supervision.