Spring 2021 Graduate Student Fellowships, Awards, Prizes, Publications and Placements

A list of some of the many awards, prizes, publications, and placements of English Graduate Students for the 2020-21 academic year.

Congratulations to our graduate students for all their amazing achievements!

2020 Dissertation Prizes

Carl Bode Prize: Best Dissertation on an American Subject

Setsko Yokoyama, "Digital Frost: Accessibility and Public Humanities"

Director: Martha Nell Smith

Alice Geyer Dissertation Prize: Best Dissertation on British Literature

Emilee Durand, "'At All Times, and In All Places, Adored and Oppressed': Gender, Temporality, and Conjectural History in the Transatlantic World, 1600-1800"

Director: Tita Chico

Charles A. Caramello Distinguished Dissertation Award Honorable Mention

Gerard Holmes, "Discretion in the Interval: Emily Dickinson's Musical Performances”

Director: Martha Nell Smith

Essay/Other Prizes

Kinnaird Essay Prize for PhD Essay: Rachel Stroup

Kinnaird Essay Prize for MA Essay: Kym Drapcho

Katherine McKittrick Book Award: Keisha Allan

Awards

Garth Libhart received the Robinson Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

Kerishma Panigrahi received the Robinson Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

Brittany Starr received the Robinson Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

Nabila Hijazi received an honorable mention for the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition's President's Award

Fellowships

University of Maryland Dissertation Fellowships for 2020-2021

Wylie Dissertation Fellowships: Britt Starr and Aqdas Aftab (declined)

Harman-Ward Dissertation Fellowship: April Fuller

Snouffer Dissertation Fellowship: [TBA mid-June]

Summer Research Fellowships

Graduate School Summer Fellowship: Melanie Rio, Jonathan Reyes, Lexi Walston

Kwiatek Summer Fellowship: James Rankin

Special Departmental Summer Fellowships (23!): Erin Green, Natalie McGartland, Rachel Stroup, Diana Proenza, Tyra Griffin, Fred Cherry, Dylan Lewis, Elizabeth Dinneny, Fernando Duran, Da Som Lee, Andy Nunn, Elizabeth Cachmark, Kerishma Panigrahi, Britt Starr, Jenny Schollaert, Chauncey Dennie, Justin Thompson, Liam Daley, Sammy O'Connor, Kristofer Reed, Dominique Young, Jeffrey Moro, Katie Bramlett

*Money for the special departmental summer fellowships came from funds the department was able to reallocate by pausing graduate admissions for the 2020-21 cycle to provide support to continuing graduate students.

Additional Career News & Achievements for MA and PhD Programs:

English PhD student Jenny Schollaert has accepted a position as a Pathways Intern for the summer with the Division of Preservation and Access at the National Endowment for the Humanities. She will also be participating in the Dumbarton Oaks Plants Humanities Summer Program.

English PhD student Hillary Roegelein wrote and hosted an upcoming episode of the C19 Podcast titled "Cures for Unemployment: Nineteenth-Century Remedies for Today's Ailing Economy,” available this summer.

At the ASECS conference (American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies), April Fuller and Dylan Lewis delivered a presentation, "Humanities Beyond the Academy," on the Presidential Session, "Innovating the Next Fifty Years of ASECS."

English PhD Annemarie Mott Ewing placed an essay in the book Race, Citizenship, and Nation in the Literary Work of Albion R. Tourgee, which is forthcoming in 2022 from Fordham University Press.

MFA Program AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS / AY 2020-21

Awards
Temim Fruchter (MFA, '19) won a 2020 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award.

Max Lasky (MFA, '21) won the 2021 Academy of American Poets Poetry Prize, judged by Kateema Lee.

Kiera Wolfe (MFA, '22) won the 2021 Katherine Anne Porter fiction prize, judged by Nicole Cuffy.

Book Publications

Mother Water by Emily Banks (MFA, '15) was published by the University of Washington Press/Lynx House Press in February of 2021.

The Newest Employee of the Museum of Ruin by Charlie Clark (MFA, ’03) was published by Four Way Books in September of  2020.

The Life Cycle of a Bear by Steven Kleinman (MFA, '11) was published by Anhinga Press in January of 2021.

Transcript of the Unnamed by Kateema Lee (MFA, '06) was published by Kelsay Books in September of 2020.

Low Budget Movie by Kendra DeColo and Tyler Mills (MFA, '08) will be published by Diode Editions in June of 2021.

Hysterical Water by Hannah Baker Saltmarsh (MFA, '06) was published by the University of Georgia Press in February of 2021.

2020-2021 Graduate Student Outcomes

PhD Graduates

Aqdas Aftab (PhD, '21), who has accepted an Assistant Professor position at Loyola University, Chicago

Emily Yoon Perez (PhD, '18), who has accepted an Assistant Professor position at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Brandi Adams (PhD, '18) accepted an assistant professor position at Arizona State University

Setsuko Yokoyama (PhD, '20) accepted an assistant professor position in digital humanities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design

MFA Students

Maiasia Grimes (MFA, '21), who was admitted into the PhD Program in English with a specialization in Creative Writing at Texas Tech University for Fall 2021.

Max Lasky (MFA, '21), who was admitted into the PhD Program Creative Writing at Florida State University for Fall 2021.

Nicolette Polek (MFA, '19), was admitted into the MA Program in Religion and Literature at Yale Divinity School for Fall 2021.