Alison Vacca, the Gevork M. Avedissian Associate Professor of Armenian History and Civilization at Columbia University in New York City, recently received the 2025 Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prize for Excellence in Armenian Studies from the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research for her book, An Armenian Futūḥ Narrative: Łewond’s Eighth-Century History of the Caliphate (Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, 2024). Dr. Vacca shares the award with her co-author Sergio La Porta of California State University, Fresno.
According to the award announcement, Dr. Vacca’s award-winning volume “is both an invaluable new translation of an important source for the history of early Islamic rule and the only contemporary chronicle of second/eighth-century caliphal rule in Armenia, and formidable work of scholarship, presenting in-depth commentary and annotations.”
At Columbia, Dr. Vacca is affiliated with the department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies. As a historian of early Islam working on the caliphal provinces of Armenia and Caucasian Albania, she focuses her scholarship on several themes, including intercultural transmission of historical texts, quick-changing alliances in moments of intercommunal violence, and intermarriage across ethnic and religious lines. In addition to her latest publication, Dr. Vacca is the author of Non-Muslim Provinces Under Early Islam: Islamic Rule and Iranian Legitimacy in Armenia and Caucasian Albania (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Dr. Vacca earned her Ph.D. in Near Eastern studies with a focus on Islamic history and Armenian studies from the University of Michigan.