The History Associates Board Prize recognizes the best paper produced in the History Department’s Senior Honors seminar, as determined by the History Prizes Committee.
Present and previous recipients:
2025
Ryann Nelson, “The ‘Barbelles’: Femininity and Women Bodybuilders at Mid-Century Muscle Beach, California” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2025). Mentor: J. Henderson
2024
Nicole Knox, “Frontiers of Reciprocity: The Dynamics of Exchange, Diplomacy, and Power in the Dawnland” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2024). Mentor: Katie Moore.
2023
Marisol Cruz, “En La Vida: A Glimpse into the Life of Queer Latine Folks in Chicago during the 1990s” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2023). Mentor: J. Henderson.
Raana Naghieh, “Dudes, Prudes, and Statute Moralists Had Better Not Read This: PR, Feminism, and Nineteenth Century ‘Sex Radicalism’” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2023). Mentor: S. Zipperstein.
2022
James Scherrer “The Empire with a Thousand Faces State & Subject at the End of the Achaemenid Empire” (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2022). Mentor: Professor John. W. I. Lee.
2021
Nicholas Dias, “A Homegrown Fifth Column: An Analysis of the German American Bund and its Connection to the Nazi Party of Germany” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2021). Mentor: H. Marcuse.
2020
Zheng Chen, “Yüe Ou: Local Culture, Identity and Mobility in Early Nineteenth-Century Guangzhou” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2020). Mentor: X. Zheng.
2019
Julia Madden-Fulk, “From ‘Early Days’ to Alcatraz: A History of Native American Engagement with Public Space in California, 1890-Present” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2019). Mentor: Prof. Bergstorm.
2018
Megan Lucas, “Bluestockings on Campus: Women at Smith and Vassar College in the Nineteenth Century” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2018). Mentor: S. Case.
2017
Katherine Sebas, “The Clinton Administration and the Rwandan Genocide” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2017). Mentor: S. Yaqub.
2016
Charles J. Kay “Dogwhistle Disarmament: A History of Racialized Gun Control in 20th Century America”
2015
Zachary Alpert, “The Failure of the United States to Render Usama bin Laden to Justice through Diplomatic and Covert Action in Afghanistan Prior to 9/11” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2015). Mentor: S. Yaqub.
AND
Richard P. Ibarra, “Magnates, Monks, and Shepherds: Power and Land in Medieval Extremadura, Spain” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2015). Mentor: D. Blumenthal.
2014
Meredith Inman, “’And What a Place for a Shopman!’: Liberty’s, Regent Street, and the Intersection of Empire and Commercialism, 1875-1927” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2014). Mentor: E. Rappaport.
2012
Lia Schallert, “San Fransyphilis: Venereal Disease and the Evolution of Public Health Care in San Fransisco, 1850-1930” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2012).
2011
Christos Potamianos, “The Function of the Roman Spectacle in Ephesos” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2011). Mentor: E. D. Digeser.
2010
Mackenzie Weinger, “Have You Any News? How America’s First Embedded Journalists Envisioned the United States, 1846-1848” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2010). Mentor: P. Cohen.
2009
Risa Katzen, “Anything to Fit In: A Comparative Study of American and South African Women’s Suffrage Movements” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2009). Mentor: C. Harris.
2008
Risa Katzen, “Anything to Fit In: A Comparative Study of American and South African Women’s Suffrage Movements” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2009). Mentor: C. Harris.
AND
Gregory Brown: “A Matter of Opinion: Analysis of Western Virginian Racial Attitudes in the Antebellum Period.”
2007
David M. Wight, “The Ford Administration’s Role in the 1975-76 Lebanese Civil War and the Syrian Military Intervention” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2007). Mentor: S. Yaqub.
2006
Thomas Flowers, “The International Catholic Conspiracy: Catholic Politics in Elizabethan England and the 1580 Arrival of Jesuits” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2006). Mentor: J. S. McGee.
2005
Lauren Rushton, “Influencing Society: The Role of El Mercurio in Allende’s Coup” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2005). Mentor: C. Lansing.
AND
Natalie Xito, “A Massacre of Words: Native American Portrayal in 19th Century Newspapers” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2004). Mentor: P. Cohen.
2004
Mike Peixoto, “The Last Templars and Their Piety in Fourteenth Century Cypress” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2004). Mentor: C. Lansing.
2003
No award
2002
Bianca Murillo, “Urban Experiences of Elite Women in Coastal West Africa, 1880-1939” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2002). Mentor: S. Mieshcer.
2001
Steven B. Williams, “The Man on the Spot: General Maxwell Taylor’s Ambassadorship and Involvement in the Vietnam War” (Undergraduate thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2001). Mentor: F. Logevall.
1998
Jeffrey M. Brax, “The British War in Vietnam: Imperialism and Military Intervention, 1945-1946” (University of California, Santa Barbara, 1997). Mentor: L. Kalman.