2026 English Department Awards

The Department of English is proud to recognize the outstanding achievements of our undergraduates, graduates, and faculty during the 2025–26 academic year.

 These awards celebrate excellence in scholarship, teaching, creative writing, research,  and service and reflect the talent and dedication of our department community.

Faculty Awards

PTK Teaching Excellence Award

The recipients of this award demonstrated an exemplary level commitment, skill, and innovation in the classroom and had a profound impact on students. 

Recipients: 

• Paul Cote
• John Constantine Tobin 

Faculty Service Award

This award is recognized by the Graduate English Organization. This year's recipient, Christina Walter is recognized for the mentorship, support, and resources she offered as interim director of undergraduate studies. 

Kandice Cuh Mentorship Award

This award is recognized by the Graduate English Organization. This year's recipient, Joshua Weiner, is recognized for his thoughtful mentorship, advising, and commitment to the success of the MFA program. 

 

Graduate Student Awards

Carl Bode Dissertation Award

Named in honor of longtime professor and American literature scholar Carl Bode, this award recognizes the best dissertation in American literature.

Recipient: Elizabeth Dinneny
Dissertation: “Schematic Bodies: Housing, Sexuality, and Status Property in U.S. Literature”
Director: GerShun Avilez

Kinnaird Awards

Established in memory of romantic literature scholar John Kinnaird, these awards recognize outstanding seminar papers by master’s and doctoral students.

Master’s Award: Matthew David Herskovitz
“At the Boundary of Biodiacritics in James Wright’s The Branch Will Not Break” (1963)

Doctoral Award: Dalton Edward Greene
“Insatiable Monsters and Fair Maids: Miscegenation and the More-Than-Human in John Lyly’s Galatea”

James A. Robinson Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

Created in honor of professor and drama scholar James A. Robinson, this award recognizes exceptional teaching assistants.

Recipients:

• Dalton Edward Greene
• Rashi Maheshwari
• Natalie Claire McGartland

Academy of American Poets Poetry Prize 

Awarded to a student in the MFA Creative Writing Program for exemplary poetry. 

Recipient: Victoria Chan
Poem: "Chinese Nighthawks"
Judge: L.S. McKee M.F.A. '05

Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize

Awarded to a student in the MFA Creative Writing Program for exemplary fiction. 

Recipient: Somto Ihueze
Short Story: “Di Nwanne’m”
Judge: Megan Howell M.F.A. '20

 

Undergraduate Student Awards

Sandy Mack English Honors Award

Named for the founder of the English Honors Program, this award recognizes the student with the most outstanding overall record in English Honors.

Recipient: LeeAnn Wong Arbelo
Project: “Shorelines of Struggle: The Tears, Erosion and Body of Puerto Rico”
Director: Juan Carlos Quintero Herencia

English Honors Graduates

The department also recognizes the outstanding students who completed the English Honors Program this year:

• Julie Hae-Young Cha — “These Words Taste a Bit Foreign: How Translated Korean Literature is Altered to be Palatable to Anglophone”
• Isabella Corrin Cusack — “Quietus”
• Sydney Alexandria Mitchell — “A Story of Language: Defining the DMV Jazz Dialect”
• Christian Nickolai Pascual — “Community Storytelling: Community Interaction in Alternate Reality Games”
• Jessica Reed — “‘All My Lucent Empire’: The Failure of Revolution in John Keats’s Hyperion”
• Isabella Jolene Rogofsky — “The Responsibility of Nature: Afrofuturism & Ecocriticism in Parable of the Sower”
• Molly Christine Russell — “Stories that Uproot: The Re-Enchantment of Stewardship through Tolkien’s Fantasy”

Henrietta Spiegel Creative Writing Award

Named for Henrietta Spiegel, who earned her English degree from UMD at age 85, this award honors outstanding undergraduate creative writing.

Poetry: Lynn FitzPatrick
Fiction: Mads Dunn

Joseph W. Houppert Memorial Prize

Established in memory of Renaissance scholar Joseph W. Houppert, this award recognizes the best undergraduate essay on Shakespeare.

Recipient: Maxine Poe-Jensen
Essay: “Subverting Expectations: The Tensions of English Nationalism in Henry V”

Sara Ann Soper English Undergraduate Service Award

This award honors a graduating senior for outstanding community service and leadership.

Recipient: Sophia Grace Petricoin

Mike Angel Award

The Mike Angel Award recognizes perseverance, distinction, and extraordinary merit in overcoming hardship as an English major.

Recipient: Marshall Fay-Jin Wong

Academic Excellence / Joyce Tayloe Horrell Award

This award recognizes graduating seniors with a 4.0 GPA in major coursework.

This year’s recipients are as follows: 

• Sarah Judith Bean
• Emily Louise Bolton
• Jada Rosemarie Clark
• Victoria Grace Cleveland
• Gabriella Feinberg
• Noora Ghahremani
• Alexandra Elizabeth Jentz
• Maiya Nicole Kim
• Trisha Kirsten Kingkeo
• Josephine Helen Lunsford
• Rahul Reddy Mallapu
• Beatrice Mazzon
• Sophia Isabell McCarthy
• Sydney Alexandria Mitchell
• Sophia Petricoin
• Jessica Reed
• Lynne Regules
• Nora Schobel