This year, both the winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in History and the sole finalist are alumni of the UC Davis History Department Ph.D. program. The Pulitzer Prize is one of the most prestigious honors in journalism, literature and music composition.

Historian Lisa Materson’s book, Radical Solidarity: Ruth Reynolds, Political Allyship, and the Battle for Puerto Rico's Independence (UNC Press, 2024), tells the story of an unlikely activist and radical pacifist from South Dakota who followed her conscience to Puerto Rico in the 1940s to join the independence movement.