Graduate Student News

David Bolingbroke successfully defends dissertation

David Bolingbroke successfully defended his dissertation, “Nuclear Animals and an Atomic Restoration: An Environmental History of the Hanford Nuclear Site.” His committee members included Jeff Sanders, Peter Boag, and Bob Bauman.

David’s work focused on the animals tested and monitored by Hanford Cold War-era biologists to better understand the effects of radioactive exposure. Bolingbroke argued that animals are crucial to understanding Cold War science, postwar ecological risks, and the conservation efforts that flowed from them. In 2015, he worked with Northwest News Network journalist Anna King for her Daughters of Hanford story about nuclear scientist Leona Woods Marshall Libby. In addition to Hanford animals and nuclear history, Bolingbroke has researched and written about Pacific Northwest wheat history and northern Nevada fisheries history. From 2018 to 2020, he served a two-year term representing the public at large on the Hanford Advisory Board. Bolingbroke enjoys teaching, advising, and guiding students as they master digital technologies like StoryMaps.

Congratulations, David!

Brian Stack successfully defends dissertation

Brian Stack successfully defended his dissertation, “’In Certain Western Areas of the United States’: Bestiality, Sexuality, and Animals in the American West, 1880-1975.” His committee members included Peter Boag, Jennifer Thigpen, Jeffrey Sanders, and Matthew Sutton.

Congratulations, Brian!

Qianni Shen successfully defends thesis

Qianni Shen successfully defended her thesis, “Behind the glory: Revealing the Hidden Personal Memory of Chinese Air Force pilots and Japanese Kamikaze Pilots, 1931-1945.” Her committee members included Puck Brecher, Noriko Kawamura, and Ray Sun.

Congratulations, Qianni!

Cole Robinson successfully defends thesis

Cole Robinson successfully defended his thesis, “Negotiating Sovereignty Within the British Atlantic: Text Mining the Discourse of Colonial South Carolinian Elites, 1769-1776.” His committee members included Lawrence Hatter, Jennifer Thigpen, and Robert McCoy.

Congratulations, Cole!

Samantha Edgerton publishes book review

Doctoral student Samantha Edgerton published a book review of Land Uprising: Native Story Power and the Insurgent Horizons of Latinx Indigeneity, by Simón Ventura Trujillo (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2020) in the Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 52, Issue 1, Spring 2021, pages 91–92. You can read Samantha’s book review.

The department plans to award the following scholarships to support current students pursuing an MA or PhD in history: