My experience as an editor with The Historical Review this year has been one of the most rewarding of my college career, and I am so thrilled to have been given the opportunity to continue working with this incredible journal next year in my new role as Editor-in-Chief. With our 2024 edition, I hope to further the journal’s mission as a resource for up-and-coming undergraduate researchers while continuing to develop its contributions to the wider field.

Undergraduate research journals occupy a unique and important position in academia, as spaces to practice career skills and engage in a form of peer-to-peer learning relatively uncommon in formal university settings. This has been my experience this year working with a group of talented editors and inspiring young authors, and it is a legacy I hope to carry on. The field of history is also currently in a very exciting period of development, as historians increasingly center social history, positionality, and agency in ways that are expanding our understanding of the past. As an outlet for young voices, journals like The Historical Review have an opportunity to bring in new perspectives and cultivate emerging strategies starting at the undergraduate level.

The last few decades have seen a number of shifts in the field of history away from traditional forms of research and writing and towards more interdisciplinary and accessible approaches. In institutional academia, other forms of historical knowledge like collaborative work or storytelling have been, and continue to be, left out. One of my major goals is to begin incorporating these into The Historical Review, which I hope will serve to both support pioneering research at UW in these neglected areas and link the journal to broader disciplinary discourse.

On a final note, it would feel like a betrayal to my younger self—the version that questioned if a future in history was even possible—if I failed to mention one last thing: the centrality of my personal journey with neurodivergence to my experiences in academia. Recently, nearly four years into my college career, I was diagnosed with ADHD. I have spent the last few months reflecting on the ways that this has impacted and shaped my life and studies, including my work as an editor. Though I discovered my passion for history a very long time before I even thought about college, my ADHD made it feel inaccessible to me as a career because I could not work in the same way everybody else seemed to be able to do with ease. At the same time, I have learned that that same ADHD has given me certain strengths that have come to define my work: a focus on broad synthesis work, an ability to make wide-reaching analytical connections quickly, and a tendency to deep-dive into hours and hours of niche research.These strengths are often overlooked in broader conversations

about neurodivergence in academia, which in turn can feel isolating and discouraging. I wanted to share my journey from a passionate kid who loved historical books but could never sit down long enough to finish them to this amazing opportunity I have now to work with some of the brightest young historians in the field. It is my goal, both with The Historical Review and in my career, to ensure that the generation of historians after us will have access to this type of representation.

I would like to thank the 2022-2023 executive team, Editor-in-Chief Sierra Muehlbauer and Managing Editor Lillian Williamson for their leadership and support during my time as an editor. I will be guided not only by their vision for the journal as a space for showcasing undergraduate research, but also by their genuine enthusiasm for the study of history. I am proud to have been part of the team behind this spring’s edition of The Historical Review, and I am so excited to continue this work next year.

Makenna Page