ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT - Key Persons
Abby serves as librarian to the WSRC/HBI scholars, staff and students. She received a BA from Alfred University; a MA in American history from the University of Delaware; and a Master of Library Science from Simmons School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Member of the Nominating and Governance Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director for Communications
Amy Sessler Powell has been writing for local and national news organizations for 30 years. Prior to working at HBI, Powell was associate editor of the Jewish Journal in Salem, Mass. and publicity director for the Lappin Foundation. Earlier in her career, she worked at several local newspapers and was part of the inaugural team for the Boston Globe North section. She is also a private college essay coach. Powell received a BA from Tufts University and an MS from Boston University. Her work has appeared in Parenting Magazine, Patch.com, RandomHousekids.com, Interfaithfamily.com, Lamaze.com, Twins Magazine and others.
Job Titles:
- Director of Budget Systems, Reporting and Business Processes
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Member of the Nominating and Governance Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Us / Women 's Studies Research Center
Job Titles:
- Member of the Nominating and Governance Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Assistant Vice President for Finance and University Controller
Job Titles:
- Director of Procurement and Accounts Payable
Job Titles:
- Member of the Nominating and Governance Team
- Member of the Officers Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Nominating and Governance Team
- Member of the Officers Team
- Trustee
- Vice - Chair
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Risk Management & Audit Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Officers Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Risk Management & Audit Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director for Administration
Debby Olins joined the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute in 2000. She holds a bachelor's degree from Connecticut College and a master's degree from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Olins oversees all HBI's academic programs including: the HBI Research Awards, the Scholar-in-Residence Program, HBI Internship Program, the HBI Artist-in-Residence Program and the HBI Translation Competition.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Nominating and Governance Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Senior Payroll Specialist
Job Titles:
- Served As Chair, 1997 - 2002
Diane has held numerous leadership positions in the Jewish community on local, national and international levels. She is passionate about Jewish education. Diane was the first chair of the Hadassah Brandeis Institute, whose mission is to develop fresh ways of thinking about Jews and gender worldwide by producing and promoting scholarly research and artistic projects. A science educator by profession, she is extremely interested in the neuroscience of language acquisition in early childhood and the cutting edge research on the spiritual child. Diane was past chair of PEJE (partnership for Excellence in Jewish education) and JESNA (Jewish education service of North America.) Presently, in addition to HBI, she serves on the board of the Davidson School of Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary; Hebrew Publics, a growing group of Hebrew charter schools in the U.S.; Shalom Learning, an online after-school program reaching students from 2nd to 7th grades in conjunction with synagogues as well as private mentoring; and the Washington Institute for Mid East Policy. She is a "friend" of the Israel Sci Tech schools. During the last twenty years, Diane has been involved in the renaissance of Jewish life throughout the world, especially in the FSU, where she often travelled with a group of family foundations from 1993-2006, renewing and restoring the seeds of Jewish life by giving grants to newly formed Jewish organizations. Diane and her husband Harold Grinspoon have traveled extensively around the world. She is a trustee of the Grinspoon Foundation and serves on the PJ Library book selection committee. She has received numerous awards and honorary degrees as well as published articles on intergenerational philanthropy. Between Diane and Harold they have six children and eleven grandchildren.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board of Advisors
Dr. Ellen Kornmehl is a retired radiation oncologist, parent to two teenage children, Lia and Jake, and pediatric and adult cancer survivor. After graduating from Yale College '84 with concentrations in Immunology and Literature, she obtained an MD from Yale School of Medicine '88 and subsequently completed a residency through the Joint Center at Harvard Medical School and an American Cancer Society Clinical Fellowship in Immunology at the DFCI '93. Through her career, she served as an Attending physician in the in BWH/DFCI/Outreach programs, the MGH Department of Radiation Medicine, the MGH Gillette Center for Breast Diseases and Chief of Radiation Oncology Consultative Services at Newton Wellesley Hospital with interests in breast disease, lymphoma, and radioimmunotherapy. She has served on the Scientific Advisory Board of IDEC Pharmaceuticals, as a founding advisor to the New England Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, the Board of the Susan G. Komen New England Affiliate, and as a health advocate for Silent Spring, a national environmental toxicology and public policy organization focused on women's cancers and endocrine disruptors. After taking medical leave in 2006 and welcoming her second child, Ellen elected to parent full-time. She currently serves as a second term member of The Winsor School Corporation. She and her husband, Dr. Ernest Kornmehl, are active members of the Jewish community in Boston and Newton and have been honored by Mayyim Hayyim for their support. Their family enjoys exploring the world, sailing and boating, learning about food sources, and drawing.
Job Titles:
- WSRC 's Director and Associate Professor of South Asian Literature
- WSRC Director / Associate Professor of Literature, and Women 's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Harleen Singh is WSRC's Director and Associate Professor of South Asian Literature and Women's Studies. She and Sarah Lamb founded the South Asian Studies Program at Brandeis and Singh served as its Chair from 2007-2016. She is the faculty representative to the Board of Trustees at Brandeis. Her writing on novels from India and Pakistan, on Indian film, and book reviews on Hip-Hop music, sexuality, and feminism have been published in various leading journals. Her chapters on women warriors and South Asian women writers are included in seminal book collections. Her monograph, The Rani of Jhansi: Gender, History, and Fable in India (Cambridge, 2014), interprets the conflicting, mutable images of an historical icon as they change over time in literature, film, history, and popular culture. The book is in its second reprint and has been reviewed in The Telegraph, Economic and Political Weekly, The Book Review, BIBLIO, and South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. Her interdisciplinary work in English, Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi is focused on women, history, politics, and identity in literature and film. Her next book, Contemporary Debates in Postcolonial Feminism, is being published by Routledge in 2021. Her current book projects include a critical translation of Amrita Pritam's seminal partition novel Pinjar and a monograph titled Half an Independence: Women, Violence, and Modern Lives in India. Professor Singh is a recipient of the ACLS Burkhardt fellowship and was a resident fellow at the National Humanities Center.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Advisors
Dr. Ruth Nemzoff is the author of Don't Roll Your Eyes: Making In-Laws Into Family (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2012) and Don't Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships With Your Adult Children (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2008) and frequently speaks on family dynamics. She formerly taught at Bentley University, now is an affiliated scholar at Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center
Dr. Nemzoff was Assistant Minority Leader of the New Hampshire Legislature and New Hampshire Deputy Commissioner of Health and Welfare. She holds a doctorate in social policy from Harvard University, an MA in counseling from Columbia University and BA from Barnard College, and her papers are archived at Harvard University's Schlesinger Library. As a visiting scholar at the Wellesley Center for Research of Women, she wrote an historical analysis of the "Changing Perceptions of Mother of Children with Disabilities." She has also published articles about environmental advertising and women in business and politics. She founded a nursery school, a counseling service, and the National Women's Legislative Lobby. Currently, she is on the boards of 18Doors: Unlocking Jewish. and the Jewish Grandparents Network and the advice columnist for the American Israelite.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Advisors
- Professor
Dr. Tobe Levin von Gleichen is a collegiate professor emerita with the University of Maryland University College in Europe, an adjunct at the University of Frankfurt, and an Associate (since 2006) of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. She earned her PhD in comparative literature from Cornell University and a maitrîse from the Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle (Paris III) for her thesis on "Images of Women in Rousseau and Diderot." Dr. Levin has conducted extensive research and publication on women in the Holocaust. She has also held visiting research positions at Mt. Holyoke College, Brandeis and Cornell universities in the USA, and at China Women's University in Beijing, China.
Since 2009 Dr. Levin has been teaching summers at Northwestern Polytechnical University (Xi Gong Da), Department of Aeronautical Engineering, in Xi'an, China, and has lectured in Beijing on gender in African and African American literature as well as in her specialty, female genital mutilation (FGM). The topic first seized her attention in 1977 when the German feminist magazine EMMA introduced the term "Clitoridectomy." Since then, Dr. Levin has combined scholarship with activism and is recognized in Germany as one of the movement's pioneers. In regular consultation with African activists, in 1998 she co-founded FORWARD-Germany, e.V., a charity that aims to end the dangerous practice, and in 2009 launched UnCUT/VOICES Press to present to English-language readers key books on FGM that had appeared in French, German and other European languages. A multi-lingual educator and activist, she also translates and publishes, having three edited volumes and more than a hundred articles and book chapters to date. She lectures widely and blogs.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Advisors
Elaine Reuben received her PhD from Stanford University in English, American and Dramatic Literature, fields in which she taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A leader in the development of women's studies and affirmative attention to women faculty and students, Elaine was a member, then co-chair, of the Modern Language Association Commission on the Status of Women in the Profession, and was visiting associate professor and the first full-time faculty director of women's studies at The George Washington Graduate School. While national coordinator of the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) she taught in the American Studies program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where NWSA was based, and directed the NWSA/FIPSE Project to Improve Service Learning in Women's Studies. Subsequently, Elaine served as a special assistant to the deputy undersecretary for management at the U.S. Department of Education, conducted executive searches for colleges and universities, was acting executive director of the Network of East-West Women, and provided training, consulting, editorial and organizational assistance to academic and non-profit organizations. A past president of the Jewish Study Center in Washington, DC, and among the founding trustees of the Tikkun Olan Women's Foundation of Greater Washington, she is a council member of Theater J at the Washington, DC JCC, a supporter of the Mosaic Theater Company of DC, and patron of the Timbrel Artist-in-Residence at the Summer Institute of the National Havurah Committee. She co-chaired the Middle East Peace and Democracy Circle of the Women Donor's Network, and is a member of J Street's President's Council and Finance Committee and of the New Israel Fund's DC Leadership and International Councils; she is a supporter of DC's Jeremiah Fellowship, a program of Jews United for Justice, and of the ACLU of the National Capital Area. On the HBI board, Elaine founded the Reuben/Rifkin Jewish Women Writers Series, a joint project of HBI and the Feminist Press, where she was also a board member for many years, and recently supported the HBI Spring 2016 Scholars-in-Residence Seminar on Jewish Women Writers in North America. A Brandeis graduate, she has supported the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts, made possible the University's acquisition of the Lilith Magazine archive, and been an engaged supporter of Peacebuilding and the Arts programs of the Brandeis International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, where she is now a board member. In 2016 she was elected to the Brandeis Board of Fellows.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of the Practice in the Hornstein Program in Jewish Professional Leadership
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- Strategic Sourcing Manager
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- Compensation and Organizational Development Internal Consultant
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- Occupational Health Specialist
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- Manager of Payroll Services
- Payroll and Cashiering Services
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- Associate Vice President, Finance & Business
- Procurement and Business Services
- Sponsored Program Accounting
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- Assistant Vice President for Communications
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- Financial Services Coordinator
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- Manager, Accounts Payable
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- Content and Media Specialist
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- Assistant Vice President - Financial Systems
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- Senior Payroll Specialist
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- Business Integration Manager, People Soft Financials
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- WSRC Program Administrator
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- Member of the Risk Management & Audit Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Advisors
- Leader of Jewish
Leslie B. Gaffin has served as a lay leader of Jewish organizations for nearly 40 years. She is a member of the National Council of Hadassah and liaison to the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. She is a past chair of the Hadassah Northeast Area Development Center and served as the first Northeast Liaison for Keepers of the Gate from 2000-2002. A resident of Boston, Leslie is a member of the Board of JArts and serves as past chair and member of the executive committee of the Miriam Fund. Leslie received her BA from Wheaton College and earned a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Management from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. Leslie and her husband, Michael, were founding members of Temple Shir Tikva in Wayland, where Leslie served on the board of directors from 1978-88. Leslie and Michael have three married children and seven grandchildren.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Officers Team
- Trustee
- Vice - Chair
- Secretary / Elected November 2012
Job Titles:
- Director of the Hadassah - Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University
Lisa Fishbayn Joffe is the Director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University where she teaches in the Departments of Philosophy and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. She is also director of the Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law that explores the tension between women's equality claims and religious laws. Her research focuses on gender and multiculturalism in family law and on the intersection between secular and religious law. She is the author of "Gender, Religion and Family Law: Theorizing Conflicts Between Women's Rights and Cultural Traditions," (2012); "The Polygamy Question," (2015); "Women's Rights and Religious Law," (2016) and was guest editor of a special issue of "Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues on New Historical and Legal Perspectives on Jewish Divorce," (Volume 31, 2017). She is a co-founder of the Boston Agunah Task Force, devoted to research, education and advocacy for women under Jewish family law. She holds three law degrees; an LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School and LLM and SJD from Harvard Law School. Before coming to HBI, she taught in the the Faculty of Laws, University College London and was law clerk to Justice Frank Iacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada. She was called to the bar of the Law Society of Upper Canada.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Marketing Executive
- Member of the Officers Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Director of Talent and Learning
Job Titles:
- Executive Director, Recruitment, Compensation, OD and Workday HCM
Our namesake, Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, championed open inquiry and civic engagement. During his tenure on the high court (1916-1941), Justice Brandeis established the legal concept of a right to privacy, fiercely defended civil liberties, and helped define the modern understanding of free speech. Justice Brandeis personified the values at the heart of the bold institution our founders were building.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Nominating and Governance Team
- Member of the Risk Management & Audit Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Buyer
- Contract Administrator
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- Chairman in Modern Jewish History
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- Senior Recruitment and Talent Specialist
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Vice - Chair of the Nominating and Governance Team
Job Titles:
- Senior Departmental Administrator
Nancy Leonard, as Senior Departmental Administrator, oversees all the administrative and logistical aspects of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute's programs and events. Leonard received her MS in Project and Program Management from Brandeis University and a BA in Literature and Writing from Columbia University. Prior to HBI, she has worked at the University of Washington, Barnes and Noble (San Diego Regional Office), and Ticketmaster (New York Corporate Office).
Job Titles:
- Buyer
- Systems Administrator
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Advisors
Phyllis Hammer has been active in the Boston Jewish community for more than 20 years. She served as president of Ma'ayan, Boston's Torah Studies Initiative for Women, which she helped found. Hammer was a founder of Congregation Shaarei Tefillah in Newton and served as its vice president. She also has served on the boards of Maimonides School, Boston's Bureau of Jewish Education and Combined Jewish Philanthropies. Phyllis Hammer is also a founder of Edah, a national organization dedicated to strengthening Modern Orthodoxy. She earned a PhD in microbiology from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and was a National Science Foundation Fellow at MIT, conducting research in immunochemistry. Until 1983, she was a member of the research staff of MIT, working in biochemistry and biophysics.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Human Resources
Job Titles:
- Member of the Officers Team
- President
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Director, Sponsored Programs Accounting
Job Titles:
- Chief Financial Officer
- Treasurer
Lisa Fishbayn Joffe is the Director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University where she teaches in the Departments of Philosophy and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. She is also director of the Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law that explores the tension between women's equality claims and religious laws. Her research focuses on gender and multiculturalism in family law and on the intersection between secular and religious law. She is the author of "Gender, Religion and Family Law: Theorizing Conflicts Between Women's Rights and Cultural Traditions," (2012); "The Polygamy Question," (2015); "Women's Rights and Religious Law," (2016) and was guest editor of a special issue of "Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues on New Historical and Legal Perspectives on Jewish Divorce," (Volume 31, 2017). She is a co-founder of the Boston Agunah Task Force, devoted to research, education and advocacy for women under Jewish family law. She holds three law degrees; an LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School and LLM and SJD from Harvard Law School. Before coming to HBI, she taught in the the Faculty of Laws, University College London and was law clerk to Justice Frank Iacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada. She was called to the bar of the Law Society of Upper Canada.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Risk Management & Audit Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Vice - Chair of the Risk Management & Audit Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Advisors
Suzanne Priebatsch has focused her career in investment management on helping people become more "financially literate" so they can manage their wealth during their lifetimes and pass on legacies that reflect their values. A graduate of Smith College, Priebatsch became an investment manager in 1986, helping educate clients on making choices that were in line with their priorities. She has lectured on financial empowerment of women and girls at many universities and professional organizations. Outside of her career in investment, she has served on the boards of the Children's Museum of Boston, the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, the Jewish Arts Collaborative, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Hadassah Medical Organization, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. She also served as a founding board member of the Jewish Women's Archive. In 2006 she was honored by the Boston chapter of Hadassah as a Woman of Distinction. As of 2016 she serves as senior vice president of wealth management with Morgan Stanley.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Advisors
- Trustee
- Vice - Chair
Sylvia Markowicz Neil is lecturer in law at the University of Chicago Law School where she previously served as associate dean, and is appointed to the university councils for the Humanities, the Stevanovich Institute for the Creation of Knowledge and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. She is the founder and chair of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute's Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law and is co-editor of its book series. She began her career as a poverty law litigator, served as Midwest regional executive director and legal counsel of the American Jewish Congress and consulted with government and not for profits, establishing the Jewish Women's Foundation for the Chicago Jewish Federation. She was appointed to both the Illinois and Cook County Commissions for Human Rights. Sylvia received the Rabbi Robert J. Marx Social Justice Award from the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.
Sylvia is widely involved in the civic, cultural and philanthropic community. She currently is chair of the board of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, vice chair of the Art Institute of Chicago and on the board of Brandeis University where she is chair of the Board of Fellows. She also serves on the boards of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Public Radio, and the Chicago High School for the Arts. She is life trustee (former chair) of the Grand Teton Music Festival and trustee emeritus of the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.
Sylvia received her AB with high distinction (history) from the University of Michigan, AM (Jewish studies) from the University of Chicago and JD cum laude from Northwestern University School of Law. She is married to Daniel R. Fischel and together they collect art, enjoy music and are proud of their wonderful growing family of children and grandchildren.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Advisors
Talia Carner is the author of several award-winning novels, including The Third Daughter (HarperCollins, 2019) which was named a finalist by the Jewish Book Council in the Book Club category and led to the launch of her public-service anti-sex-trafficking campaign. Her novel, Hotel Moscow, (HarperCollins, 2015) won a USA Book News award. Jerusalem Maiden, (HarperCollins, 2011,) won the Forward National Literature Award in the "historical fiction" category, and China Doll, an Amazon bestseller, served as the platform for Ms. Carner's presentation at the U.N. in 2007 about infanticide in China-the first in U.N. history.
Ms. Carner is the former publisher of Savvy Woman magazine as well as a former adjunct professor at Long Island University School of Management and a marketing consultant to Fortune 500 companies. She was also a volunteer counselor and lecturer for the Small Business Administration and a member of United States Information Agency (USIA) missions to Russia. She participated at the 1995 International Women's Conference in Beijing, where she sat on economic panels and helped develop political campaigns for Indian and African women. Ms. Carner has addressed over 450 civic, educational and religious organizations in person and virtually. She is married to Ron Carner, former president of Maccabi USA. The couple has four grown children and reside in New York and Florida.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Sandra Seltzer Silberman Conversations Series and Communications Coordinator for HBI
Terri Brown Preuss is the director of the Sandra Seltzer Silberman Conversations Series and the Communications Coordinator at HBI. She joined HBI in 2017 and is a graduate of Boston University where she received her BA in History with a minor in Women's Studies. She also received her JD from Northeastern University School of Law. Preuss comes to the HBI with a great deal of experience in program development and management as well as volunteer recruitment and engagement from her many years as an active volunteer and Board member at the Solomon Schechter Day School in Newton, MA. She is trained as a lawyer and early in her career worked for the ACLU as an intake attorney focusing on civil rights and civil liberties.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Risk Management & Audit Team
- Trustee
Job Titles:
- Manager, Sponsored Programs Accounting