Awards & Fellowships

Jeff Roche is the author and editor of four books that examine the relationships between politics and place, culture and history. They include Restructured Resistance: The Sibley Commission and the Politics of Desegregation in Georgia (1996, 2010),  The Conservative Sixties with David Farber (2001), and The Political Culture of the New West (2008). His most recent book is The Conservative Frontier: Texas and the Origins of the New Right, published October 2025. He is currently at work on a cultural biography of cereal magnate and anti-labor zealot C.W. Post. He received his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico and his BA and MA from Georgia State University. Since 2001, he has taught at the College of Wooster in Ohio. He is also the founder and director of the Monday Night Mile, a non-profit organization that raises money for children’s hospitals.

Sarah K.M. Rodríguez (FAYETTEVILLE, AR) is an assistant professor of US history at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

Mary Ellen Curtin is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies and Director of American Studies at American University, Washington D.C. 

Vincent A. Lázaro is an attorney, historian, and policy scholar based in San Antonio, Texas. He is the founder and principal of the Law Office of Vincent A. Lázaro and has previously served as General Counsel and Senior Research Associate for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), as well as a staff attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF).

Lázaro holds degrees from several institutions of higher education, including Yale University, Columbia Law School, and Harvard University, where he completed doctoral studies in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy. He also served as an editor of the Harvard Educational Review and the Columbia Human Rights Law Review.

In addition to his legal and historical scholarship, Lázaro’s interdisciplinary work includes writing on the cultural and historical significance of mariachi trumpet pedagogy, informed by his experience as a former member of Mariachi Campanas de América, one of the premier Mariachis in the United States. He is also a former U.S. Army officer. His scholarly interests include the origins of the first public high school in San Antonio, Texas, as well as the intersection of law, education, and culture.

Dr. Caroline Wood Newhall is an Assistant Professor at Oberlin College where she teaches 19th-century United States history, the American Civil War, and Reconstruction. Her research focuses on North American slavery, captivity, and warfare. Her publications include a chapter in Race and Gender at War: Writing American Military History with the University of Alabama Press and a chapter on gender and Reconstruction for Oxford University Press's forthcoming Reconstruction Handbook. Her talks have been featured on C-SPAN and YouTube. Her first book project, under contract with the University of North Carolina Press, explores African American soldiers who became prisoners of war (POWs) in the Confederacy, as well as a digital database and mapping project centered on these POWs’ movements throughout the American South and their genealogies.

David Huenlich is a linguist whose research bridges language documentation and historical inquiry. He studied at the University of Leipzig and the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned an interdisciplinary PhD in Germanic Studies and Linguistics in 2016 under the supervision of Hans Boas and Jacqueline Toribio. He subsequently worked at the Leibniz Institute for the German Language, contributing to a project evaluating the integration of refugees into the German labor market.

In 2022, he was awarded a DAAD scholarship to document the lives of Black German speakers in Texas, conducting his research through the History Department at Texas A&M University with Walter Kamphoefner. That same year, he began teaching German, linguistics, and Texas German history at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

He has since returned to Germany, where he lives with his family of five and continues his research on German minority communities in the Americas at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt in Bavaria.

Jim Burnett is a fourth-generation Texan who holds a master’s degree from Texas A&M University and has been actively researching the state’s history for over four decades. After retiring from a thirty-year career with the National Park Service, he began a second career as a writer and is the author of three non-fiction books and over fifty short articles. His latest book, Saltgrass Prairie Saga: A German American Family in Texas, was published in 2025 by Texas A&M University Press.

Adalberto Guerrero is a Dual Credit History Teacher at Burges High School, serving within the Burges Early College High School program, and is a dedicated advocate for early college access and history education. He holds a bachelor’s degree in History with a concentration in Education from both the University of Texas at El Paso and Grand Canyon University. His goal in education has been to help first-generation college students gain meaningful college experience before graduating high school in order to promote long-term academic success. Having personally graduated from an early college program, he deeply understands the value and impact of these opportunities.

Mr. Guerrero has hosted Burges History Night for the past two years, where students present original historical research through websites, documentaries, performances, exhibits, and essays. He hopes to expand student participation in National History Day. In addition, he is a co-sponsor of the BECHS Buddies, a mentorship organization designed to support students transitioning from eighth grade into college-level coursework with guidance from experienced early college students. He also serves as the assistant swim coach at Burges High School. Outside of the classroom, Mr. Guerrero is a proud husband and father who enjoys reading and cinema.

Eliza Kravitz is an advocate and historian from Washington, DC. She is writing a book on the Bracero Program in Monterrey, Nuevo León, México that examines the experiences, narratives, and controversies around braceros who completed contracting in Monterrey before crossing the border in Texas and embarking on work contracts on farms in Texas and elsewhere in the U.S. This project, which emerged from her senior thesis at Yale University, also highlights the photojournalism of American photojournalist Leonard Nadel and interrogates his well-meaning yet misguided interpretations of the scenes he photographed at the Monterrey bracero contracting center. In addition to her scholarly work, Eliza has also worked for humanitarian and legal aid organizations on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and served on the staff of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker human rights organization in southwest Florida.

Linda Sioux Henley is a seventh-generation Texan and an award-winning Western sculptor whose work celebrates Texas heritage, frontier life, and cowboy culture. Raised in a rodeo family, she found her artistic calling after visiting the Cowboy Artists of America Museum in Kerrville, leading to decades of study, exhibitions, and nationally recognized work in bronze, porcelain, and stoneware. A member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Henley was commissioned to create a life-size bronze sculpture of an early Texas pioneer woman and child for the Texas State Capitol grounds, unveiled in 1998. Her public art includes large-scale sculptures across Texas, including a Pecos Bill monument in Pecos and installations at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. In 2023, she was inducted as a Master Sculptor into the All Cowboy & Arena Champions Hall of Fame.

Jillian grew up in Dallas, Texas, and spent a year and a half studying at the University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Texas at Austin before taking a break to gain hands-on experience in the film industry. In 2019, she completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where she produced and directed her first feature-length documentary, Remember My Soul.

Remember My Soul explores the Jewish history of South Texas, tracing the Jewish diaspora from Europe to Mexico and into the modern Texas–Mexico borderlands. The film examines suspected crypto-Judaic traditions in the region and the interethnic relationships between Jewish and Catholic Latino communities. It has screened at multiple film festivals, including the San Antonio Film Festival, Cine El Sol Film Festival, and the Boca Raton Jewish Film Festival, and is archived at several Texas university libraries as well as the Library of Congress.

Jillian received grants from the Texas Jewish Historical Society and her university’s Engaged Scholar Award to support the production of the film. She has presented and hosted screenings in collaboration with the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, the Texas Jewish Historical Society, and the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society.

She earned her M.A. in History from Texas A&M University in 2024 and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in history. Her doctoral research focuses on early Black women filmmakers from 1918 to 1941. Jillian continues to screen and present Remember My Soul at academic and public venues.

For almost four decades in the video and film industry, Barbara Rosenthal has actively sought out projects that educate, inspire, and broaden public understanding of important historical and cultural issues. Rosenthal received her B.A. in history from Western Carolina University in 1987 and, although awarded a fellowship from Wake Forest University to pursue a master’s degree, she chose instead a career path that allowed her to develop her skills as a filmmaker.

Her most recent film, Grit & Grace: How Jewish Women Built a Better Texas, explores key sociological and cultural developments in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Texas history through the lives of five influential Jewish women. Centered on interviews with direct descendants and experts from communities shaped by these women’s contributions, the film reflects Rosenthal’s lifelong fascination with women’s history and her passion for storytelling. Three years in the making, Grit & Grace highlights the enduring impact of women whose leadership helped shape Texas.

Rosenthal’s previous documentary work includes Seders & Cigars – A History of Jews in Tampa (2019), which examines themes such as Jewish immigration quotas, maintaining extended family bonds in competitive economic environments, cultural assimilation, the intersection of antisemitism and segregation, and the rise of women in politics. That film is archived in the Judaic Collection at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Her other films include You Are the One: A Journey of Recovery, Discovery & Empowerment (2012) and Losing Lois (2001).

Nichole Ritchie is a Social Studies teacher at Llano Junior High and an active member of her community. A passionate educator, she has received numerous teaching awards and is dedicated to fostering civic engagement and historical curiosity among her students. As a sponsor of the Junior Historians Club, she encourages students to explore Texas history through research, leadership, and community involvement.

Emily is a photographer, educator, and artist interested in investigating communal and individual memory, identity, and placemaking through photography, writing, and audio. She holds a BA in fine arts and history from Haverford College, an MFA in photography from Louisiana State University, and is an incoming PhD student in American studies at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Her current body of work, "We had to know who we were; We had to know who we weren't" explores Jewish identity, history, placemaking, and memory in the rural and small-town Deep South. Her work has been supported by The Southern Jewish Historical Society, Texas Jewish Historical Society, Alabama Folklife Association, and the LSU School of Art Graduate Student Scholarly & Creative Activity Support Fund.

Opal Lee, often referred to as the "Grandmother of Juneteenth," made history on June 17, 2021, when she stood beside President Joe Biden as he signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law, officially making June 19, or "Juneteenth," a federal holiday. On that day, she famously said, “Now we can celebrate freedom from the 19th of June to the 4th of July!”

Born in Marshall, Texas, in 1926, Ms. Lee moved to Fort Worth in 1937. At the age of 12, her family’s home was destroyed on June 19, 1939, but instead of allowing this hardship to deter them, the Lee family continued to make a significant impact in their community. Throughout her life, Ms. Lee has served on numerous boards and worked with a wide range of organizations, including Citizens Concerned with Human Dignity (CCHD), Habitat for Humanity, and the Tarrant County Black Historical & Genealogical Society, all of which are dedicated to preserving the history and culture of Fort Worth’s Black community.

As Chairman of the Community Food Bank, Ms. Lee led the effort to secure a 1.3-million-dollar, 33,000-square-foot facility that now serves over 500 families daily.

Ms. Lee is the longest-serving board member of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF), a national movement founded by the late Dr. Ronald Myers, that advocated for Juneteenth to become a federal holiday. At the age of 90, she launched a walking campaign from Fort Worth to Washington, DC, to raise awareness for Juneteenth. She walked 2.5 miles in cities across the country to symbolize the 2.5 years it took for the news of the Emancipation Proclamation to reach Texas and free the enslaved. In 2019, she further amplified her advocacy with an online petition that garnered over 1.6 million signatures in support of national holiday recognition.

Currently, Ms. Lee serves on the boards of Unity Unlimited, Inc., and Transform 1012 N. Main Street, and holds the position of Board Member and Honorary Chair of the National Juneteenth Museum. Over the years, she has received seven honorary doctorates, been named the 2021 Texan of the Year by the Dallas Morning News, and recognized as the 2021 Unsung Hero of the Pandemic by Fort Worth Inc. She was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and, most recently, became the second African American to have her portrait displayed in the Texas State Senate.

Editor-in-Chief, Texas Supreme Court Historical Society Journal; Trustee, Texas Supreme Court Historical Society; Distinguished Jurist in Residence, Faulkner University Thomas Goode Jones School of Law; former Justice on Texas’ Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas, author of five books and more than sixty law review articles.

Lisa M. Mouton, the Social Studies and World Languages Coordinator (K-12) for Bryan ISD, has long been a passionate supporter of social studies education and the Texas History Day program. A resident of College Station, TX, she holds a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University and a master’s degree from Sam Houston State University, both in history. She is a member of the City of College Station Historic Preservation Committee, the Board Chairperson for the Brazos Valley African American Museum, treasurer of her local Delta Kappa Gamma chapter, and serves as the communication director for her church in the greater Houston Northwest region. She enjoys playing piano, community service, and travel.

Laura Narvaez is a first-gen Ph.D. candidate in her fourth year of study at Southern Methodist University. She completed her BA and MA at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she was a Nau Graduate Research Fellow and focused on twentieth-century Texas and U.S. history. Her doctoral research centers on oral history methodology, focusing on the intersections of gender, race, and class in Chicana feminist activism and the Mexican Revolution’s impact on memory and Mexican American social movements. Currently, she works for the Voices of SMU Oral History Project, where she conducts interviews with underrepresented alumni and retiring faculty to document the history of the university and bring diverse voices into the archives.

Dan Caponio is a PhD Candidate at the University of Kansas. He received his MA in History from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (2011) and his BA in history from the University of Texas at Austin (2010). He studies nineteenth-century Indigenous history in the American West and Southwest. Specifically, Dan is interested in southwestern Indigenous participation in the American Civil War.

Tara López is an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. Social and cultural movements, especially among working class and communities of color, comprise López’s research interests. In her recent book, Chuco Punk: Sonic Insurgency in El Paso for the American Music Series at the University of Texas Press, López brings to light the dynamic and rich historic, cultural, and social roots of punk rock in El Paso from the late 1970s to the early 2000s. By centering narrative on punx themselves, especially the women and Mexican American punx who comprised the dominant force in this music world, the far-reaching influence of El Paso punk rock on music, history, and space emerges. In her downtime, she loves to listen to music; run; read authors like Albert Camus, Sandra Cisneros, and Yoko Ogawa; play with her dogs Bonita and Luna; skateboard; and spend time with her family in her home state of New Mexico.

Dr. Christina Marie Villarreal is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Her research focuses on the Texas-Louisiana borderlands, early America, fugitives from slavery, desertion, and sanctuary. Her recent publication, “Black Fugitive Strategies: Slavery and Self-Emancipation in the Spanish Gulf Coast Borderlands,” appears in At the Heart of the Borderlands: Africans and Afro-descendants on the Edges of Colonial Spanish America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2023). Villarreal has received support for her research from the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Program, The Institute for Citizens & Scholars, and the SSRC-Mellon Mays Program. In 2021-2022, Villarreal was a Research Fellow at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University, where she worked on her forthcoming manuscript, “Imperial Fugitives: Apostates, Deserters, and Runaways in Eighteenth-Century Texas and Louisiana Borderlands, 1714-1803.”

Dusty Williams is a 9^th Generation resident of Grayson County, Texas, Author, Speaker, Teacher, Local Historian, and has ancestors who were living in Texas prior to its admission to the United States as the 28^th State. At the age of 14 he began doing genealogy with his grandparents, Larry and Kim William, trapsing through cemeteries and visiting local libraries, and museums to research as this was before genealogy and historical records were available online. With such deep roots in Grayson County, family history, became county history, and he soon became a North Texas historian. When he was 18, he founded a group called Lost and Found Cemetery Preservation which located and restored lost and abandoned cemeteries in the Texoma area. They often worked with the Boy Scouts to not only have these forgotten cemeteries documented, but preserved, and restored as well.

He soon started writing historical articles for local papers, which led to his publication of county historical books. One of his books documents the colorful history of The Grayson County Poor Farm which his family ran and managed from the Depression Era until its closure in the 1960’s. Williams, in his informative, well rounded writing style, documents many topics regarding local history in his books and publications. The writings are not only filled with unique events, but they are backed by documentation and primary sources which leaves little room for doubt regarding their content. He is known for bringing attention to the lesser-known histories that have somehow slipped through the cracks with the passing of time. His latest writings for the community are called, Sunday Morning Drives, in which he drives through local areas and tells, through his writings, what was once at these locations, or what significant events took place here. He uses old plats, maps, interviews, and historical articles, and documents to support the information.

He received two master’s degrees from Texas A&M at Commerce, one in Secondary Education, and one in Curriculum and Instruction. He currently teaches 7^th Grade Texas History at Howe Middle School and is the Student Council Sponsor for the middle school. He infuses his knowledge of local history into his lessons which creates meaningful connections between his students and the content. He is an advocate of research and project-based learning, vs traditional testing, and has his students conduct research and create a project for each unit of Texas History. Should students need an opportunity to earn extra points, he allows them to either attend a local historical presentation and write a report to present to the class, or attend a local government meeting, identify an issue the group discussed and what they are doing to address the said issue, and then report back to the class. Through this, he encourages students to take an active role within their community and share their experiences with their classmates.

Just outside of his classroom is a fence post from a local farm dating back to the 1800’s. This post sits near the pathway students take each day to his class. It was taken from the farm of Collin McKinney, the oldest person to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence, and a historical figure that is local to the community. The interpretive note attached to the post explains how materials were used to make the post, and how the wooden pegs were treated for use. This post is a great example of how his research supports his classroom instruction, and is an example of his desire to link local history, as well as State history, to students so that they are able to better grasp its significance, and its relatability to them.

In addition to serving Howe Middle School as a teacher and student council sponsor, a published Texas history author, and a 9th Generation Grayson County Texas resident, he has also taught adult ESL courses to immigrant citizens at the local community college, as well as a lecture series to the community at Grayson County College regarding local history. He gives speeches and historical presentations to various groups across North Texas including local historical societies, DAR/SAR chapters, and other organizations with an interest in local and state history.

In 2022 he was elected as a City Council Member for the city of Van Alstyne under the campaign slogan of: “Preserving Our Past, Planning Our Future.” He was reelected in 2024 and continues to serve as a councilmember. Rooted in history, Williams strives to ensure that it remains central when it comes to growth, change, and the ever present “marching” into the future. He stated that he is glad to be a part of the future of Van Alstyne and to mold it so that it “builds on our past, versus replaces our past.” When asked what legacy he would like to leave behind in Van Alstyne, he stated, “It is not about the legacy I leave, our legacy is already here. It is a matter of making sure the legacy stays. Those who founded this town, and who were here in this community, they started the legacy, and it is our job to keep it going.” He said in one word, Van Alstyne’s legacy so far, is “Community.”

Mr. Williams serves as the Chairman for the Grayson County Historical Commission, President for the Van Alstyne Historical Society, Vice-President for the Van Alstyne Public Library, Board Member for the Van Alstyne Cemetery, Secretary for the Cannon Cemetery Association, and President for the Architectural Review Panel in Van Alstyne which helps to regulate the standards of the historic downtown buildings and keep them looking historical and preserving their originality when it comes to appearance. In the past couple of years, Williams has taken on the task of repairing, restoring, and resetting old tombstones in local cemeteries that have been damaged, fallen over, or buried due to erosion. In his “spare time” he has remodeled his historic home in Van Alstyne, doing all the work himself.

Hannah Shepherd is currently a graduate student in the History department at East Texas A&M University. Her primary research interests include South Asia, the Middle East, and Islam. She has a forthcoming publication in the Journal of South Texas entitled: “Islam in Texas Prisons: a Civil Rights Struggle for Religious Freedom 1970-2000s”. The Mary M. Hughes Fellowship will fund travel to El Paso, TX for research on British Indian Immigration to the area in the early twentieth century. This research contributes to a larger project: Crossing Borders, Facing Barriers: Immigration Policy and Societal Perceptions of British Indian Immigrants in Early 20th-Century El Paso, Texas.

Todd Copeland, Ph.D., holds degrees in English from Baylor University (B.A.), The University of Georgia (M.A.), and Texas A&M University (Ph.D.). He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book The Immortal Ten, the second edition of which will be published by Baylor University Press in 2025. His other works include Like All Light (2022), winner of the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize from Gunpowder Press. His literary work and scholarly articles have appeared in Image, The Journal, Christianity & Literature, Sugar House Review, Literary Imagination, JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory, and Media, War & Conflict, among other publications. A native of Ohio, he lives in Waco, Texas, and works at Baylor University, where he has served in institutional advancement for more than thirty years and has taught creative writing and American literature.

A sixth-generation Texan and native San Antonian, Ramona was raised between her hometown and her family’s South Texas ranch. She and her husband, Lee, share their enthusiasm for the Texas ranching heritage and traditions, and for wildlife conservation worldwide, with a focus on Texas wildlife conservation and education in particular. They also share a love for history, most especially the history of Texas.

As the driving force behind the Fort Worth Zoo’s renaissance, Ramona guided the 115-year-old institution through privatization and a long list of advances, resulting in the Zoo’s recognition as one of the top zoos in the country. With the opening of Texas Wild! in 2001, she was able to combine her passion for Texas history, the ranching heritage and native wildlife conservation into one immersive educational powerhouse. Texas Wild! is the only experience of its kind. While it celebrates the private landowners of Texas for their positive stewardship of wild things and wild places, it takes guests on an ecosystem tour of the Lone Star State. It allows millions of visitors to explore and learn about the diversity and complexity of the animals and the land within our great state that have informed our history, our character and our culture.

Ramona was appointed Chairman of the TPW Education and Advisory Committee, which launched the Parks and Wildlife’s iconic Life’s Better Outside initiative. She served for four years as Vice President of the Alamo Endowment. In 2018, she received the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) Award of Excellence in Conservation. In 2019, she and Lee were inducted into the Texas Parks and Wildlife Conservation Hall of Fame. This year, she was honored to receive the inaugural Kay Bailey Hutchison Award for Women in Texas History.

Gabrielle Lyle is a PhD candidate in History at Texas A&M University. Her dissertation, tentatively titled, “B’nai Borderlands: The Development of Jewish Communities in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands in the Twentieth Century” examines the connections between Judaism in the borderlands and the wider Jewish world. Gabrielle has received funding for her work from the Southern Jewish Historical Society, the Texas Jewish Historical Society, and the Arizona Historical Society. She is the recipient of the 2022-2023 Portal to Texas History Fellowship from the UNT Libraries and the 2023-2024 Joseph & Eva R. Dave Fellowship at the American Jewish Archives. The Lynna Kay Shuffield Memorial Award in Texas Jewish History recognizes Gabrielle’s 2023 article “Hebrew in Harlingen: An Examination of Jewish Community Development in the Rio Grande Valley” featured in The Journal of South Texas.

Dr. James B. Barrera is Professor of History at South Texas College in McAllen where he teaches U.S., Texas and Mexican American history and the History Capstone course. He received his B.A. in History from Texas A&M University-College Station, M.A. in Borderlands History from the University of Texas-El Paso, and Ph.D. in History from the University of New Mexico. His research and teaching interests focus on the history of Latinos/Mexican Americans in the U.S. emphasizing civil rights, social movements, oral narratives, cultural identity and educational activism in the twentieth century. He is the author of “We Want Better Education!”: The 1960s Chicano Student Movement, School Walkouts and the Quest for Educational Reform in South Texas published by Texas A&M University Press in November 2023 as part of the Elma Dill Russell Spencer Series in the West and Southwest.

Sarah Curry is a Ph.D. student in History at Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland. 

Dr. Alberto Wilson is a current Mellon Fellow at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, NM, and an incoming Assistant Professor of History at Texas Christian University. The Mary M. Hughes Fellowship will fund travel to the National Archives in Washington DC for research into the Immigration and Naturalization border commuter program in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez that permitted green-card holders to reside in Mexico and legally work in the United States during the 1960s and early 1970s. This research forms part of his larger manuscript, tentatively titled: Pan American Cities.

Photo Credit: @SAR

Dr. Kendra DeHart was born and raised in Alpine, Texas. She received her BA in History and Communication from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas and her MA, specializing in Public History, from Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas where she defended her thesis on home demonstration work in Texas with distinction. She was also designated Texas State University’s Outstanding Graduate Student in History. A recipient of the Provost Fellowship at Texas Christian University, Kendra completed her Ph.D. at TCU and currently is an Associate Professor of History as well as Chair of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Departmentat Sul Ross State University where she teaches courses on US History, the American West, Women’s History, and Texas History. She was also a recent finalist for SRSU’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year. Kendra has presented at numerous conferences and received several awards, including the Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Jr. Award for the best published article in The Sound Historian: Journal of the Texas Oral History Association. Currently, she is completing a manuscript on West Texas women’s clubs in the post-WWII period.

Michael Banerjee is a Ph.D. student in Jurisprudence and Social Policy at Berkeley Law, studying the interrelated histories of state, university, and corporation. He holds two B.A.'s from the Pennsylvania State University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and an M.A. from Berkeley Law. At Harvard, Michael served as a student attorney with both the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and the Harvard Defenders. During the 2022-23 year, Michael served as law clerk to Vermont Chief Justice Paul L. Reiber. He is currently a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Hawai'i.

Alana J. Coates is a curator, educator, and arts administrator. As a Ph.D. student at the University of New Mexico, her research focuses on Contemporary Art with a particular interest in the Art of Texas. She is currently researching and archiving the work of South Texas conceptual artist Jesse Amado. Coates has held directorships in the private sector and higher education and has curated for museums, contemporary arts festivals, artist cooperatives, and public art programs. She holds bachelor’s degrees in art history and fine arts from the University of Rhode Island. Her graduate studies were at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she studied art history and nonprofit leadership.

Photo Credit: Gerold Lovato

Karla A. Lira is Mexican born and Valley raised Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Houston. Lira’s research focuses on multi-racial dynamics of Latinx and Black college athletes in the educational and athletic spaces from the latter part of Jim Crow to the 1970s. Her current project, “For The City,” sheds light on the social relations Latinx and Blacks had in the city of Houston and the University of Houston Athletic Program through oral interviews. 

Noah F. Crawford is a PhD candidate at Texas A&M University who studies the social history and military history of the American Civil War era. His research focuses on refugees during that conflict—who they were, how they lived, and the ways in which they influenced the course of the war. His master’s thesis—“’A Matter of Increasing Perplexity’: Public Perception, Treatment, and Military Influence of Refugees in the Shenandoah Valley During the American Civil War”—won the Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award at Virginia Tech. Fellowships through the Nau Center for Civil War History and the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies provided for archival research that yielded conference presentations with the Society for Military History, the East Texas Historical Association, and the Center for Civil War Research. Papers presented at these meetings demonstrated how refugee studies can serve as a vehicle for synthesizing disparate aspects of Civil War history including race, diplomacy, gender, and military operations.

Ahmed Deidán de la Torre is a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin specializing in Atlantic History. Holding a B.A. in History from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an M.A. in History from the University of Texas at Austin, his scholarly work explores the realms of new political history and the history of concepts within the Hispanic world, particularly in Ecuador, Peru, Spain and Uruguay. His focus spans from the Age of Revolutions to the formation of nation-states, approximately between 1760 and 1860.

Ahmed has published a book that delves into the conceptual evolution of “people” and “sovereignty” in Quito, Ecuador. Moreover, he is the author of several articles and book chapters that scrutinize Quito’s insurgency, the impact and integration of the Cádiz Constitution in the Province of Quito, as well as the intricacies of Ecuadorian federalism. For further details on his work, please visit his Linktree. In addition to his academic pursuits, Ahmed serves on the History Commission of the Ecuadorian Chapter of the Pan American Institute of Geography and History and is also actively involved in research groups both in Ecuador and Spain.

Jennifer Ross-Nazzal is a NASA Historian with a distinguished career as the Johnson Space Center Historian from 2004 to 2022. She holds a Ph.D. from Washington State University and a master's in Information Science from the University of North Texas. Jennifer is known for her expertise in NASA history and women’s history, authoring Winning the West for Women, a biography of suffragist Emma Smith DeVoe, and Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The latter received the 2023 Liz Carpenter Award and the Temple Vick-Award for its contributions to women’s history.

Dr. Claire Wolnisty is an associate professor of history at Austin College in Sherman, TX.  She teaches classes on the US Civil War, Texas history, pirates and smugglers, American colonial history, and US women's history.  She is the author of A Different Manifest Destiny: US Southern Identity and Citizenship in Nineteenth-Century South America.

Daniel Glenn is an associate professor of history at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. 

I have been in education for 9 years, all of which I have spent at New Caney High School. I have taught various subjects such as AP World History, World Geography and most recently AP Human Geography, as well as a special topic in a social studies course called American Assassinations. In addition to my teaching experience, I also have been the lead sponsor for the National History Day Program at New Caney for six years. Through NHD, I was able to participate in the Sacrifice for Freedom program, where I got to study behind the scenes at museums at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I love being able to travel to new places to bring these experiences back to my classroom and incorporate them into my lessons. I have also been an AP Reader through Collegeboard for both the AP World History and AP Human Geography courses for the last several years.

Lilia Raquel Rosas is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, but also calls Austin home after living and working with its diverse communities for over two and half decades, including as the Executive Director of Red Salmon Arts. She is the proud daughter of a retired cook/former bracero and a retired domestica. She joined the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at UT Austin as an Assistant Professor of Instruction in 2018, where her teaching and research interests include relational and comparative Ethnic and Queer Studies through the histories of (me)Xicana/o/s, African Americans, women, indigeneity, and race and sexualities. Recently, Lilia Raquel was awarded a U.S. Latino Digital Humanities-Mellon Foundation Grants-in-Aid to initiate the project, Tejana Historias: Indigenous Indentations and Transfrontera Transformation, a visual repository of the Tejana experiences from the Paleoindian Period to the present. 

Halee Robinson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Princeton University. She received her B.A. from Vanderbilt University in History and Political Science. She currently works on the histories of race, freedom, citizenship, and the carceral state in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her dissertation, tentatively titled “The Texas Penal System, Community, and the Meanings of Freedom and Citizenship, 1865-1912,” explores how Black, Mexican, and poor white folks increasingly came into contact with the Texas penal system after the Civil War. Focusing on Texas residents’ experiences with policing, courts, and state punishment and violence, she examines how the penal system shaped the meanings and contours of freedom, citizenship, and community across the state.

Shea Tuttle is the author of Exactly as You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers, co-author with Michael G. Long of Phyllis Frye and the Fight for Transgender Rights, and co-editor of two collections on faith and justice. Her writing has appeared at The New York Times Magazine, Bitch Media, The Toast, and other outlets.

Ashley is a PhD candidate in art history at Columbia University. She holds degrees in art history from Agnes Scott College and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has contributed to exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, the Blanton Museum of Art, the Bard Graduate Center Gallery, and the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University. She is currently working on a dissertation about the intersections of unfree artistic labor and settler colonialism in the United States from 1850 to 1930. She was born and raised in Austin, Texas.

Cecilia N. Sánchez Hill is a Ph.D. candidate at Texas Christian University focusing on Mexican American history and education in Fort Worth with a graduate certificate in Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES). She is the winner of the first Diversity in Research Award from the TCU’s AddRan College of Liberal Arts for her master’s thesis, “¿Mi Tierra, También? Mexican American Civil Rights in Fort Worth, Texas, 1940-1990s.” She served as member of the CRES contract team that worked with Fort Worth ISD in creating the now published Latinx Studies Curriculum in K-12 School: A Practical Guide. Cecilia also published the article, “Disrupting the Master Narrative: Mexican Americans in the Borderlands,” in the Journal of Social Studies and History Education where she described the power of erasing the culture and contributions of Mexicans and Mexican Americans to the development of the Southwestern United States. Prior to school at TCU, Hill taught US History and AP World History for Fort Worth ISD, served as social studies middle school specialist, and helped write the curriculum for the Latina/o Studies Elective course. After she completes her Ph.D. program, Hill hopes to continue to help secondary history teachers move beyond the traditional narrative used in history classrooms and assist these teachers in creating lessons that nurture critical-thinking skills.

Michael G. Long is the coauthor, with Yohuru Williams, of More Than a Dream: The Radical March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Call Him Jack: The Story of Jackie Robinson, Black Freedom Fighter. 

An expert on LGBTQ rights, civil rights, and nonviolent protest, Long is also the coauthor, with Jacqueline Houtman and Walter Naegle, of Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the March on Washington; and, with Shea Tuttle, of Phyllis Frye and the Fight for Transgender Rights. Long has also authored or edited Martin Luther King, Jr., Homosexuality, and the Early Gay Rights Movement; I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters; Gay Is Good: The Life and Letters of Gay Rights Pioneer Franklin Kameny; and We the Resistance: Nonviolent Protest in US History.

Long’s work has been featured in The Gay and Lesbian Review, The Advocate, OutSmart, The Washington Blade, The Afro, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, USA Today, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, Salon, Ebony/Jet, The Root, The Undefeated, and many other places.

Long has spoken in numerous schools and at the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Constitution Center, the National Museum of American History, the Schomburg Center of the New York Public Library, the New-York Historical Society, and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. And he’s appeared on MSNBC, PBS, C-Span, and National Public Radio. 

John C. Domino is Professor of Political Science at Sam Houston State University, where he teaches constitutional law, judicial politics, and legal history. He is the author of the books, Civil Rights & Liberties in the 21 st Century (2018) and Texas Supreme Court Justice Bob Gammage: A Jurisprudence of Rights & Liberties (2019). His articles have appeared in such journals as Justice Systems Journal, South Texas Law Review, the British Journal of American Legal Studies and the Journal of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society.