Faculty
Assistant Professor Sandy F. Chang won an American Councils of Learned Societies (ACLS) award. The award grants her a year of research leave, during which she will focus on her book project “Across the South Seas: Gender, Intimacy, and Chinese Migrants in British Malaya, 1870s-1930s.” Professor Chang also won best article prizes from the Berkshire Conference and Coordinating Council of Women Historians for her paper “Intimate Itinerancy: Sex, Work, and Chinese Women in Colonial Malaya’s Brothel Economy, 1870s-1930s,” published in the Journal of Women’s History in 2021.
Professor Jack Davis was named Distinguished Professor by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The award is given to faculty for excellence in their field of research and a substantial record of service at UF. He was one of two CLAS faculty given the honor this year.
Assistant Professor James Gerien-Chen won a Fulbright-Hays award for 2023. The award will support his research in Japan and Taiwan for his book manuscript “Between Nation and Empire: Migration and Law in the Making of Japanese Empire in Taiwan, South China, and Southeast Asia, 1895–1950.” The book examines the transregional migration of colonial Taiwanese and their role in shaping Japanese imperial expansion, Chinese state-building, and the development of overseas Chinese networks.
The Samuel Proctor Oral History Center won a $349,000 grant for a National Park Service-funded project called “Interviewing Descendants of the Underground Railroad.” Program staff and students will conduct interviews with living descendants and their families to preserve their vital stories. The resulting video and audio recordings will be stored by the National Park Service and the University of Florida Digital Collections at George A. Smathers Libraries.
Graduate
Daniel J. Fernández Guevara and Oren Okhovat, both of whom recently defended their PhDs in the Department of History, received Fulbright Research Scholarships to Spain for the 2023-24 academic year. Fernández will spend the year in the Madrid area researching a project called “Unearthing the Origins of Spanish Solidarity with Cuba’s Proletariat, 1868-1930.” Okhovat will be based in Seville to work on the project “Cosmopolitan Empire: International Merchant Companies and Spanish Imperialism, 1580-1714.”
Undergraduate
Patrick Grey received a Beinecke Scholarship, UF’s first recipient since 2008 and only the fourth in its history. The scholarship provides funding for college juniors who plan to pursue graduate school. Grey will use the award to enroll in a PhD program in History.
Shannon Scott received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Germany.