Month / October 2025

by emoryhistorydept

Graduate Student Alejandro Guardado Wins AHA Beveridge Grant


Doctoral student Alejandro Guardado won the Albert J. Beveridge grant from the American Historical Association for his research project, “Reimagining Community: Indigenous Organizing in Mexico’s Neoliberal Turn, 1968–2000.” Guardado’s dissertation centers on Self Determination Movements in Zapotec and Mixe communities in the Sierra Norte of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. He analyzes how Indigenous intellectuals and activists developed networks with micro-regional political coalitions, anthropologists, liberation theologians, and NGOs as a means of renegotiating their relationship to the Mexican government and market forces.

The Beveridge grants support research in the history of the Western Hemisphere, and Guardado was among just 15 graduate students nationwide selected for the prize. Dr. Yanna Yannakis, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History and Department Chair, serves as Guardado’s dissertation advisor.

by emoryhistorydept

History Major Lucia Alexeyev Traces the Lasting Health Effects of U.S. Occupation in Vieques, Puerto Rico


In the summer of 2025, Emory College senior Lucia Alexeyev conducted research about the relationship between U.S. Naval occupation and residents’ health and access to healthcare on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico. Alexeyev’s project, titled “Military Occupation and Changing Healthcare Landscapes: Vieques and the U.S. Navy, 1941-2003,” was funded by the History Department’s Cuttino Scholarship for Independent Research Abroad.

While in the field, Alexeyev observed the effects of the Trump administration’s rescission of research grants through the Environmental Protection Agency. She chronicled the on-the-ground consequences of – and responses to – those cuts in a piece for Nueve Millones, “Vieques’ health investigator seeks funding after EPA’s cancellation: ‘This is just a rock on the road.‘”

Alexeyev is a History major and Global Health, Culture and Society minor. Dr. Jeffrey Lesser, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History, serves as her thesis adviser. Read an excerpt from the Nueve Millones piece below and find the full article here.

“Even with how politics has changed in the EPA, Estrada Martinez remains hopeful for the study’s completion. She’s inspired by the Viequense community’s 63-year struggle to remove the Navy from the island, plus an additional 20-year battle to obtain funding for VASAC in the first place. ‘This is just a rock on the road, and we will figure out together how to get rid of it and move forward, right?‘”

by emoryhistorydept

Christopher Snyder (PhD, ’94) Named William L. Giles Distinguished Professor at MSU

MSU President Mark E. Keenum is pictured with William L. Giles Distinguished Professor Christopher Snyder, center, and MSU Provost and Executive Vice President David Shaw. PHOTO: Emily Grace McCall | MSU Public Affairs

Dr. Christopher Snyder, a 1994 graduate of the Emory History doctoral program with a concentration in medieval history, has been named a William L. Giles Distinguished Professor at Mississippi State University. The Giles professorships award outstanding research, teaching, and service and are among the highest honors given to faculty at MSU.

Snyder is a professor of history and director of British studies in the Judy and Bobby Shackouls Honors College at MSU, where he served as the college’s founding dean. He has authored ten books and numerous articles in the fields of archaeology, history, literary criticism, ethics, and medieval studies. His most recent book is Hobbit Virtues: Rediscovering Virtue Ethics through J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (New York and London: Pegasus/ Simon & Schuster, 2020).

Snyder’s graduate work at Emory was advised by Tom Burns and Steve White.

by emoryhistorydept

Graduate Student Becca Aponte Publishes Article in ‘Slavery & Abolition’


Second year graduate student Becca Aponte recently published an article in Slavery & Abolition, the premier journal for slavery and emancipation studies. Aponte was a co-author of the article, entitled “Runaway Enslaved Families in Senegal: Mothers, Children, Resistance, and Vulnerabilities, 1857–1903.”

The article was produced as part of the Senegal Liberations Project (of which Aponte is a team member), a digital humanities collaborative formerly funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. This project analyzes the liberation records of 28,930 enslaved Africans who sought freedom between 1857 and 1903. 

Aponte’s research interests center on emancipation, labor, and law in the French empire. Her work investigates how women wove, and were woven into, the financial and familial networks of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Senegal. Drs. Mariana P. Candido, Adriana Chira, and Clifton Crais serve as her advisers.

by emoryhistorydept

Jinyu Liu Awarded Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study


Dr. Jinyu Liu, Betty Gage Holland Professor of Roman History, was awarded a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in the School of Historical Studies for the fall 2025 semester. This prestigious membership allows for focused research and the free and open exchange of ideas among an international community of scholars at one of the foremost centers for intellectual inquiry.

At IAS, Jinyu Liu will be working on “Outsiders in Town,” which explores social exclusion and the negotiation costs of relocation for mobile and immigrant tradesmen and craftsmen in the Roman West during the first three centuries.

Each year, IAS welcomes more than 250 of the most promising post-doctoral researchers and distinguished scholars from around the world to advance fundamental discovery as part of an interdisciplinary and collaborative environment. Visiting scholars are selected through a highly competitive process for their bold ideas, innovative methods, and deep research questions by the permanent Faculty—each of whom are preeminent leaders in their fields. Past IAS Faculty include Albert Einstein, Erwin Panofsky, John von Neumann, Hetty Goldman, George Kennan, and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Located in Princeton, NJ, the Institute for Advanced Study was established in 1930. Today, research at IAS is conducted across four Schools—Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Science—to push the boundaries of human knowledge.

Among past and present scholars, there have been 37 Nobel Laureates, 46 of the 64 Fields Medalists, and 24 of the 28 Abel Prize Laureates, as well as MacArthur and Guggenheim fellows, winners of the Turing Award and the Wolf, Holberg, Kluge, and Pulitzer Prizes.

by emoryhistorydept

Rogers Discusses Policy Shifts at Emory on ’11Alive’


Dr. Thomas D. Rogers, Professor of Latin American History and member of the executive committee of the Emory chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), recently appeared on Atlanta’s 11Alive to discuss Emory’s decision to “discontinue current DEI offices and programs” on campus. That decision was made in an announcement by Interim President Leah Ward Sears at the beginning of September. Rogers relayed students’ concerns about how these changes will affect their experience at Emory and discusses the broader political context within which university administrators are operating.

View the full interview here: “11Alive News: The Take | Emory dismantles DEI programs (9/8/25).”