History Graduate Student Receives Texas State Historical Association Fellowship

East Texas A&M University graduate student Hannah Shepherd was named the recipient of the Mary M. Hughes Research Fellowship in Texas History by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). Established in 1999 by the 13 children of active TSHA member Mary Hughes, the fellowship provides a $3,000 research award to one recipient each year to support research on 20th-century Texas history. Shepherd, who is majoring in History at East Texas A&M, was awarded the fellowship at the TSHA’s annual meeting. Her primary research interests include South Asia, the Middle East, and Islam, and she has a forthcoming publication in the Journal of South Texas entitled: “Islam in Texas Prisons: a Civil Rights Struggle for Religious Freedom 1970-2000s.” The fellowship will fund travel to El Paso, TX for research on British Indian Immigration to the area in the early twentieth century.