Past Graduate and Undergraduate Winners

In 2024, the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance combined the undergraduate and graduate awards to create the Stellhorn & Waldron New Jersey Studies Student Awards.  Award winners from 2004-2023 are listed below.

Past recipients of the Stellhorn Undergraduate Award are:

2023

Emily Sánchez, Princeton University, “Dismantling Development: How Black Activists Spearheaded Affordable Housing in Paterson, New Jersey, 1950-1980.” Nominated by Alison Isenberg

Rachel De La Cruz and Cayla Kerekgyarto, Union College of Union County, NJ, “'I just wanted to play tennis': Ellen Magliaro and Gender Discrimination in College Sports before Title IX" Nominated by Michele Rotunda

This paper is the result of a semester-long project in Professor Michele Rotunda’s Women in American History class at Union College. Rachel De La Cruz and Cayla Kerekgyarto served as the main writers, but all of the following  students in the class contributed to the research and first draft: Brian Abreu Castano, Kristen Camacho, Benjamin Castro, Carina De Simone, Lizbeth Gonzalez, Milena Guerra Gonzalez, Brianna Guzman, Stephanie Jaramillo, Olga Lopez, Shaylla Matos, Arianna Mesen, Veronica Mierzejewski, Daniela Mino-Lavariega, Andrea Murillo, Christina Sabat, Jaylenne Toro, Kiara Torres, and  Victoria Valletutti.

2021

Emily Borowski, Rutgers University, "Eugenics in New Jersey: How the New Jersey State Village for Epileptics Perpetuated Eugenics throughout the State." Nominated by Carla Cevasco

2020

Vayne Ong, Princeton University, “Springwood Avenue Rising: Race, Leisure, and Decline in the 1970 Asbury Park Rising.” Nominated by Alison Isenberg 

Sean Graham, Centenary University, “The Origins of Centenary Collegiate Institute: A Story of Industrialization, Wealth, and Natural Resources.” Nominated by Noah Haiduc-Dale 

2019

Perry Arrasmith, Harvard University, “A Senator’s Resolve and the Destiny of Two Nations: A Reappraisal of New Jersey’s Theodore Frelinghuysen’s Role in the Cherokee Removal Debate of 1830”

Jordan B. Antebi, Princeton University, “Bridging the Divide: Citizen Participation Versus Urban Renewal, and the Struggle for Community in Trenton, New Jersey”

2018

Caleb Dagnall, Kean University, “Statehood and Sovereignty: A Case Study of William Livingston from Philosophe to Federalist.” Nominated by Elizabeth Hyde

E. Rosie Driscoll, The College of New Jersey, “Without the Least Provision”:  Black and Desegregationist Resistance to Systemic Racial Discrimination in Private and Public Housing in Trenton, New Jersey, 1938-1965.”  Nominated by Robert McGreevey

2017

Thomas Federowicz, Rutgers University, “Scarlet Knights, Red Crusade: An Analysis of the Great Red Scare at Rutgers-New Brunswick.” Nominating Professor: Richard L. McCormick 

Samuel Fogelgaren, The College of New Jersey, “The Fight to Save the Last Frontier’: Exclusionary Zoning and Environmental Protection at the Pequannock Watershed, 1975-1985.” Nominating Professors: Christopher Fisher and Robert McGreevey 

2016

Katharine Reed, Princeton University. “Arthur Horton’s Fight Against Coeducation at Princeton:  An Unsuccessful but Crucial Battle.”

Audrey Berdahl-Baldwin,  Princeton University. “Protecting the Lawful, Combating the Lawless:  Racialized Police Violence and the 1967 Newark Uprising.”

2015: No Awards Given

2014

Brett Diehl, Princeton University. “The Story of Cezar Trent and Peter Scudder, Two Free Black Men in Antebellum Princeton.”

Steven Rodriguez, The College of New Jersey, “From Kingsbury to Mount Laurel II: Low-Cost Housing and Exclusionary Zoning in Trenton, NJ.”

Kellen Elizabeth Henniford, Princeton University. “Free Blacks, Freeborn Slaves, and Bondsmen in a Free State: African American Life and Black Political Action during New Jersey’s Emancipatory Period, c. 1820-1845.”

Erik Snyder, The College of New Jersey. “‘Stronger than the Storm’: Why the Great Atlantic Storm of 1962 Failed to Scare New Jersey from its Shore.”

Abigail Klionsky, Princeton University. “In the Tiger’s Lair: The Development of Jewish Student Life at Princeton University, 1915-1972.”

2013

Rebecca Russo, Rider University. "Not Having the Fear of God Before Her Eyes': Infanticide in Colonial New Jersey." Nominating professor: Brooke B. Hunter. 

Rachel Mark, Columbia University. "Reputation and Reality in America's Model Town: Remembering Racial Integration in Teaneck, New Jersey, 1949-1968." Nominating professor: Hilary Hallett. 

2012

Lauren A. Wells, College of New Jersey. "The Early Roots of School Desegregation: Hedgepath-Williams, Trenton, and the History Behind Brown v. Board of Education, 1943-1954."

Trevor J. McLaughlin, College of New Jersey. "A View from the Chalkboard: Trenton School Desegregation and the Struggle of Black Teachers in the Pre-Brown era, 1944-1954."

2011, First Place: 

Taylor H. Desloge, Princeton University, "‘Help the Ladies!”: Public and Private Vision in Women’s Historical Preservation at the Old Barracks in Trenton, NJ, 1899-1919.” Nominating Professor: Alison Isenberg. 

2011, Second Place (shared):

Emma Curran Donnelly Hulse, Columbia University. “The Black City: Remembering Newark in the Era of Black Power.” Nominating Professor: Alice Kessler-Harris.

Eric Schkrutz, Rutgers University. “Urban Development in the City of the Traveler: The Story of New Brunswick and Why It May Never Resolve Its Identity Crisis.” Nominating Professor: Alison Isenberg.

2010, First place:  

Patricia L. Franchino, Rutgers University. “American in Deed; Italian at Heart: Three Generations in Raritan, N.J., in the 1940s.”

2010, Second place (shared):  

Brian J. Thomas, Monmouth University. "Shore Points: The Expanding Influence of New Jersey's Garden State Parkway.”

Felicia Norott, Monmouth University. “The North American Phalanx and the Raritan Bay Union.”

2009: Amisha Patel, Rutgers University. "The Science of George Washington Honed in New Jersey." 

2008: John Rocco Calabro, Seton Hall University. "An Economic History of the City of Paterson."

2007: no award given

2006: Christopher Antanaitis, Rider University. "Chambersburg and North Trenton: Varieties in the Experiences of Italians in Trenton, N.J., c. 1900-1980."

2005: Rebecca Karol, Rowan University. "Martin Luther King, Jr., Mary's Cafe, and the Forgotten Beginning of the Civil Rights Movement."

2004: Laura Granett, Rutgers University. "The Boy Scouts of America vs. James Dale: The Court of Law vs. the Court of Public Opinion."

Past recipients of the NJSAA Graduate Student Research Project Award are:

2015

Jonathan Cohen, University of Virginia, “This is Your Hometown: Collective Memory, Industrial Flight, and the Fate of Freehold, New Jersey."

2013

Jarrett M. Drake, University of Michigan School of Information. “Off the Record: The Production of Evidence in 19th-Century New Jersey." 

2012

Steven Elliott, Federated Department of History, Rutgers-Newark/New Jersey Institute of Technology, “Sustaining the Revolution: Civil-Military Relations, Republicanism, and the Continental Army’s 1780 Morristown Encampment.”  

Laurie Lahey, American Studies, George Washington University, “Too Much Singing: Christianity and the Limitations of Nonviolence in the Ghetto.”