Presented to the graduate history student who submits the best paper during the previous calendar year.
Annabelle Spencer is an MA student in the history department also pursuing the certificate in Digital Public Humanities. She lived most of her life in Tennessee and has only been living in the Fairfax Northern Virginia area since the start of the program. At her undergraduate institution, Austin Peay State University, she also majored in History and had a double minor in Women & Gender and African American Studies. Annabelle hopes to continue in the field of history whether through academia or public-facing work. Within the field of US history, Annabelle focuses on race, gender, and intersectionality in the American South. She is currently working on a project with the African American Historical Research Group in her hometown to create a digital archive and exhibits about the brutal enslavement of the ironworks industry. Additionally, as part of the Black Lives Next Door project, she is developing a digital exhibit called Finding Sarah Ann, in which she uncovered a successful story of a pregnant woman and her children escaping on the Underground Railroad in Fairfax in 1850.