Current Lipman Fellows
Robert Anzenberger (BA ’13 History; BA ’13 Political Science)
PhD in progress
Anzenberger’s research concerns U.S. diplomatic and international relations history in post-World War II Finland and Estonia under the supervision of Dr. Karen Petrone. He is particularly interested in the relationship between these nations and the Soviet Union. Anzenberger successfully passed his qualifying exams in Fall 2025. He applied for international research fellowships in Spring 2026. Anzenberger was awarded a U.S. Department of Defense Boren Fellowship for Russian language study in Estonia as well as a Fulbright Finland Doctoral Award. Anzenberger declined Boren and accepted the Fulbright. He is currently in Finland conducting dissertation research for the 2026 academic year. In Spring 2025, Anzenberger received the department's Albisetti Award for International Dissertation Research. Anzenberger will use this award to complete dissertation research in Germany after the completion of the Fulbright in Summer 2026.
Paolo D'Amato
PhD in progress
D’Amato focuses on the history of water policy in eastern Kentucky and the Ohio and Kentucky River estuaries. In 2024–25, D’Amato collected research materials as outlined in his dissertation proposal and held a teaching assistantship. In Spring 2026, D’Amato taught his own course on Appalachian history as a Type 1 teaching assistant. He also received the department's Dorothy Leathers and George Herring Graduate Award in recognition of outstanding scholarly achievement, promise as a teacher, intellectual maturity, and contributions to the department. The Kentucky Historical Society chose D’Amato as its candidate for the KHS editorial assignment, a position funded by KHS in collaboration with the department. D’Amato began this position in July 2026, working under the supervision of the editor-in-chief of the Kentucky Register, the journal of the Kentucky Historical Society. For the 2026 academic year, D’Amato will write the dissertation and submit it to his committee for review. His advisers are Dr. Kathy Newfont and Dr. Tracy Campbell.
Kayla Heard
PhD in progress
Heard’s research interests center on the history of slavery in eighteenth-century Louisiana, women and gender and comparative Atlantic world history. She completed coursework in the 2025 academic year and is studying for qualitative exams in Fall 2025. he also holds a Department of History teaching assistantship for the 2025–2026 academic year. She plans to take qualifying examinations in Spring 2026. Heard is studying under the direction of Dr. Vanessa Holden. She received the Graduate School’s Lymon T. Johnson Fellowship for the first two years of graduate study.
Ruth Hester
PhD in progress
Working under the supervision of Dr. Amy Taylor, Hester’s research concerns U.S. Civil War-era history and its intersections with the history of medicine. Hester’s undergraduate thesis on military surgeons during the U.S. Civil War is an example of the type of research she plans to undertake in the graduate program.
Christian O’Cull
PhD in progress
O’Cull is a doctoral student studying under the supervision of Dr. Amy Taylor. In 2025, O’Cull received the University of Kentucky’s UNITE Pre-Doctoral Research Award. The award is an important recognition of the potential of O’Cull’s proposed research on post-Civil War Ohio. It also allowed O’Cull to defer his second Lipman Fellowship year to 2025–2026. During Summer 2025, O’Cull worked on the Central Kentucky Slavery Digital Access Project in collaboration with the Fayette County Clerk’s Office. O’Cull also received the department's Leslee K. Gilbert and Daniel E. Crowe award to support outstanding graduate students in the department. O’Cull successfully completed qualifying examinations in Fall 2025. He plans to defend his dissertation proposal in late Fall or early Spring 2026.
Sachen Pillay
PhD in progress
Pillay is a doctoral student in history working under the supervision of Dr. Devyn Benson. Pillay’s research interests center on the history of Cuban relations in southern Africa during the Cold War era. Pillay received a Lyman T. Johnson Fellowship, awarded by the UK Graduate School, UK’s premier recruiting fellowship
Ally Powers
BA ’25 History
A UK history undergraduate, Powers is studying for an MA degree with a focus on public history. An advisee of Dr. Kathy Newfront, Powers' interest in graduate studies in history developed when she worked as an intern for the Central Kentucky Slavery Digital Access Project. Powers assisted with the documentation and preservation of 19th-century property transactions from the Fayette County Clerk’s records. Her interests include 19th-century U.S. history, the history of slavery and the history of Kentucky.
Norina Samuels
PhD in progress
Samuels focuses on 20th-century U.S. history under the direction of Dr. Anastasia Curwood. Samuels successfully completed qualifying exams in Spring 2025. She will defend her dissertation proposal in Fall 2025 to begin dissertation research in Spring 2026. At the end of the 2025 academic year, she received the department's Lance Banning Memorial Award in American History to attend the Comic Studies Conference at Michigan State University during Summer 2025. Samuels is currently the president of the History Graduate Student Association.
Former Lipman Fellows
Mark Maxwell Brown (MA ’22, History)
Brown's master's thesis examined how Christian missionaries, influenced by liberation theology, became significant critics of the Reagan administration's support for the Contras in Nicaragua, challenging the prevailing Cold War political norms.
Dorian Cleveland (BA ’23, History; MA ’25, History)
Cleveland completed a master's in history in Spring 2025. He graduated with a terminal MA, having successfully defended an MA portfolio of three papers reflecting his study in graduate history seminars and his research in U.S. and Kentucky history. He worked under the direction of Dr. Anastasia Curwood.
Ryan Essinger (MA ’17, History)
Essinger is an academic affairs officer in the UK Office of Graduate Academic Services.
Cody Foster (PhD ’21, History)
Foster teaches history and government at Sayre School in Lexington, Kentucky.
Juli Ann Gatling Book (PhD ’16, History)
Gatling Book is the online learning special initiative manager for the Kentucky Community and Technical College System.
Stefanie Greenhill (PhD ’21, History)
Greenhill's dissertation focused on refugees who fled from the Confederacy to Union territory during the Civil War and their wartime and postwar experiences as displaced people.
Christopher Leadingham (PhD ’23, History)
Leadinghan is a visiting scholar at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University.
Emily Moore Libecap (MA ’21, History)
Libecap is a middle and upper school librarian at Sayre School in Lexington, Kentucky.
Jillean McCommons (PhD ’22, History)
McCommons is an assistant professor of history and Africana studies at the University of Richmond.
McKenna Natzke (MA ’24, History)
Natzke is a junior archivist at UNICEF.
Veronica Primm (MA ’25, History)
Primm completed an MA in history in spring 2025 under the direction of Dr. Vanessa Holden. Her research interests include slavery, U.S. history, women and gender studies and the history of medicine.
Cameron Sauers (MA ’23, History)
Sauers is pursuing a PhD in history and African American studies at Pennsylvania State University's George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center.
Logan Scisco (MA ’15, History)
Sciscon teaches social studies at Beechwood High School in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky.
Kevin Slovinsky (MA ’23, History)
Slovinsky is an education and outreach coordinator at LiKEN Knowledge, where he directs the Appalachian Heirs' Property Coalition. In this role, he oversees a free legal services program tailored for heirs' property owners in Eastern Kentucky.
Abigail Stephens (MA ’21, History; PhD ’25, History)
In Spring 2025, Abigail successfully defended her dissertation, Public Health and Racial Violence: Smallpox in Kentucky’s Urban Black Communities, 1865–1918.
Ruth Poe White (PhD ’23, History)
White holds an adjunct faculty position at St. Augustine School in Ridgeland, Mississippi.