Evelyn Pugh Memorial Graduate Endowed Fellowship History and Art History

To provide funding for a graduate fellowship in history.

2023 Awardee

Mandy Katz

Mandy Katz

MA History

Mandy is a master's candidate in U.S. history interested primarily in the Early Republican era and how North Americans then dealt with political and social questions that still vex us today. She's also a student of early urbanism in the District of the Columbia, where she lives and where she worked in the 2010s as communications director for Tudor Place Historic House & Garden, in Georgetown. She has otherwise worked as a journalist, a book editor and, for fun, a tour guide for Washington Walks. She learned Mandarin in the 1980s while earning a bachelor's degree in East Asian studies, but is thoroughly rusty now, to her great regret. Mandy finds in history not just a haven from contemporary political and social challenges but sometimes a hopeful perspective, a feeling of "we've come through this before." She hopes after graduation to write history for popular audiences. Mandy is the mother of three adult children and grandmother of a golden retriever puppy, all of whom share her love of history (except maybe the dog).