Dr. Cristina Rivera Garza (PhD, 1995) is the winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in
Memoir or Autobiography and was a Finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Liliana’s
Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice (Hogarth, 2023). A winner of a MacArthur
“Genius Award,” Dr. Rivera Garza is Distinguished Professor in Hispanic Studies at
UH. (Photo courtesy John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)
Dr. Sonia Hernández (PhD, 2006) was named a George T. & Gladys H. Abell Professor
of Liberal Arts II at Texas A&M University. Dr. Hernández won a National Endowment
for the Humanities Award for Faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions as well as the
2024 Bolton-Cutter Award from the Western History Association for best journal article
in Borderlands History. She was elected President of the Alliance for Texas History.
Dr. Caitlyn Jones (PhD, 2024) has won the 2025 Lerner-Scott Prize given annually by
the Organization of American Historians for the best doctoral dissertation in US women’s
history.
Dr. Felipe Hinojosa (PhD, 2009) holds the John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair in
Latin America at Baylor University and has been named a Fellow of the Leadership Academy/La
Academia de Liderazgo of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities.
Dr. Timothy Quevillon (PhD, 2020), of West Kentucky University, has facilitated a
large grant that that funded student researchers and a lecture series, and ensured
the longevity and expansion of the Riverlands Jewish Archive. (Photo courtesy of The
College Heights Herald)
Dr. Daniel Mendiola (PhD, 2018) published The Mosquito Confederation A Borderlands
History of Colonial Central America with University of Georgia Press in 2025. He is
currently Assistant Professor of History at Vassar College.
Dr. Jason Theriot (PhD, 2011) published Frenchie: The Story of the French Speaking
Cajuns in World War II with UL Press in 2024. Dr. Theriot specializes in historical
consulting related to the environments and cultures of the Gulf South.
