Current Lipman Fellows

Robert Anzenberger
B.A. ’13 History, B.A. ’13 Political Science
Robert is pursuing a Ph.D. in history under Dr. Karen Petrone. His research interests include U.S.-Russian foreign relations, and he has gained exposure to various foreign languages through study abroad, including Estonian, Finnish, and Russian.

Dorian Cleveland
B.A. ’23 History, M.A. in progress
Dorian is pursuing a M.A. in history. His research interest is African Americans in Appalachia. After graduating, Dorian plans to pursue a career in museum curation or archives.

Paolo D'Amato
Ph.D. in progress 
Paolo is pursuing a Ph.D. in history. He is researching the development of public water systems and public policy in twentieth-century Eastern Kentucky.

Kayla Heard
Ph.D. in progress
Kayla is pursuing a Ph.D. in history. Her research focuses on the history of enslaved people in Louisiana during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly their identity formations and resistance methods.

Jacob Johnson
M.A. in progress
Jacob is pursuing a M.A. in history under Dr. Kathy Newfont. His research focuses on Appalachian environmental history, drawing on his personal experiences growing up in a coal camp in Eastern Kentucky to offer unique, firsthand perspectives.

McKenna Natzke
M.A. ’24 History
McKenna is a graduate teaching assistant in the UK Department of History. 

Christian O’Cull
Ph.D. in progress
Christian is pursuing a Ph.D. in history. His research focuses on American political and legal history. He earned a UK UNITE Research Priority Area Predoctoral Research Fellowship for 2024-2025 in recognition of his doctoral research.

Veronica Primm
M.A. in progress
Veronica is pursuing a Ph.D. in history. She is researching how Black Americans in Tennessee re-established familial ties and forged new identities within their communities after emancipation during the Reconstruction Era, with a particular focus on mixed-race individuals born to Black enslaved mothers and white enslavers.

Norina Samuels
Ph.D. in progress
Norina is pursuing a Ph.D. in History under Dr. Anastasia Curwood. She is a first-generation college student focused on African American and military history. 

Abigail Stephens
M.A. ’21 History, Ph.D. in progress
Abigail is pursuing a Ph.D. in history. She is researching the effects of smallpox on Louisville's Black communities at the turn of the twentieth century, particularly how Black community members organized for mutual aid during this period and how the city government's public health strategies intersected with police surveillance of Black Louisvillians.

Former Lipman Fellows

Mark Maxwell Brown
M.A. ’22 History
Mark'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.

Ryan Essinger
M.A. ’17 History
Ryan is an academic affairs officer in the UK Office of Graduate Academic Services.

Cody Foster
Ph.D. ’21 History
Cody teaches history and government at Sayre School in Lexington, Kentucky.
 

Juli Ann Gatling Book
Ph.D. ’16 History
Juli Ann is the online learning special initiative manager for the Kentucky Community and Technical College System.

Stefanie Greenhill
Ph.D. ’21 History
Stefanie's dissertation focused on the refugees who fled from the Confederacy for Union territory during the Civil War and their wartime and postwar experiences as displaced people.

Christopher Leadingham
Ph.D. ’23 History
Christopher was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.

Emily Moore Libecap
M.A. ’21 History
Emily is a middle and upper school librarian at Sayre School in Lexington, Kentucky.

Jillean McCommons
Ph.D. ’22 History
Jillean is an assistant professor of history and Africana studies at the University of Richmond.

Cameron Sauers
M.A. ’23 History
Cameron is pursuing a Ph.D. in history and African American studies at the Pennsylvania State University's George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center.

Logan Scisco
M.A. ’15 History
Logan teaches social studies at Beechwood High School in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky.

Kevin Slovinsky
M.A. ’23 History
Kevin 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.

Ruth Poe White
Ph.D. ’23 History
Ruth holds an adjunct faculty position at Saint Augustine School in Ridgeland, Mississippi.