Faculty

Julia Steinberg Agnew is an adjunct instructor and teaches Issues in the Contemporary Classroom. She received her B.A. from Bowdoin College and an M.S.Ed from the University of Pennsylvania. She taught for ten years in the School District of Philadelphia and is certified in Pennsylvania with an ESL specialist certificate.

Most recently, she has been mentoring and supervising undergraduate and graduate student teachers for Arcadia University and the University of Pennsylvania. She enjoys the challenge of collaborating with urban and suburban educators to create positive, authentic...

Jeff Benvenuto (PhD, Rutgers University) teaches Unveiling the Underpinnings of Genocide, Genocide in the Modern World, Genocide Prevention, and Native American Genocides. He is a contributing co-editor of Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America (Duke University Press, 2014), has published in Journal of Genocide Research and Genocide Studies and Prevention, and is currently working on a manuscript entitled “Coopting Rights: Settler Colonial Globalism and the Normalcy of Assimilation.” He specializes in genocide studies, atrocity prevention, human rights, Indigenous studies, settler...

Stephen “Steff” Chortanoff earned degrees at Lycoming College (B.A., History), Pennsylvania State University (M.A., American Studies), Temple University (M.Ed., Educational Administration), and the American Military University (M.A., History).  Over the last dozen years, he served as an AP European History teacher, Dean of Students,  gifted support teacher, and creator and instructor of dual enrollment college history courses (Second World War, American Civil War and Reconstruction, 20th Century America, and the Vietnam War) at Lower Dauphin High School. In addition, he serves as an...

Joseph M. Davis was born in 1960.  He grew up in Providence, R.I., and attended college at Brown University.  His Ph.D. is from Harvard University in the field of medieval Jewish history and literature.  His area of academic specialization is the cultural and intellectual history of Ashkenazic Jews in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Professor Davis has been teaching at Gratz College since 1994.  Before that, he taught at Washington University in St. Louis and at the University of Maryland.  He teaches a variety of courses on aspects of medieval Jewish culture and thought and on...

Dr. Ferraro, a Philadelphia native, is a graduate of Gratz Hebrew High School. After earning a Bachelor of Music in music therapy from Temple University, Dr. Ferraro returned to Gratz College to earn both a Master of Arts and a doctorate in Jewish Education. In fact, Dr. Ferraro was the first person to earn an EdD in Jewish Education at Gratz College. Her doctoral work explored special needs Jewish education in Philadelphia. 
Dr. Ferraro has served as Director of Education at Old York Road Temple – Beth Am for twenty years. During that time, Mimi was involved in NESS- Nurturing...

Dr. Karen Galardi is an adjunct instructor for Gratz College in the doctoral program in Educational Leadership. She is currently the Associate Vice President for Program Development and Planning at Holy Family University, but Dr. Galardi has held a variety of administrative and managerial roles at Holy Family University since 1990. She is an experienced higher education administrator with over 25 years of progressive managerial experience, with specialization in branch campus administration, adult education, strategic and operational planning and workshop development and facilitation....

Anna Hartman is the Director of Early Childhood Excellence at the Jewish United Fund and the Director of the Paradigm Project, a national network that nurtures emerging leadership in Jewish early childhood education. Anna holds a master's in Jewish educational leadership from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She has participated in two study tours of the renowned municipal early childhood centers in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Before graduate school, the first graduate education course...

Douglas Irvin-Erickson is Assistant Professor at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, where he serves as director of the Raphaël Lemkin Genocide Prevention Program. He is the author of books, chapters, and articles on genocide, religion and violence, human security, international criminal law, and political theory. His recent books include Raphaël Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide and Building and Architecture for Peace in the United States (forthcoming). He is currently writing a second book on successful...

Dr. Victoria Khiterer is Associate Professor of History and the Director of the Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide at Millersville University, Pennsylvania. 
She is a founding member of the Scientific Council of the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (BYHMC) in Kiev, Ukraine.
Dr. Khiterer is author and editor of six books and over one hundred articles in Russian and Eastern European Jewish History. Dr. Khiterer recently published her books Jewish City or Inferno of Russian Israel? A History of the Jews in Kiev before February 1917 and Jewish...

Debra L. Lawrence has over 35 years in the field of early care and education. She has presented workshops and seminars at the international, national, state, and local level.   Her service to the profession includes leadership positions involving serving a four-year term on the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s governing board and continuing to serve the organization through the Board Alumni committee. Prior to moving to Pennsylvania, Debra served as President of the Colorado Association for the Education of Young Children and Co-Chair of the Governor’s School...

Dina Maiben is the Assistant Director of Gratz Advance, the Director of the Jewish Community High School and JOLT: Jewish Online Learning for Teens, as well as an Adjunct Instructor and Hebrew Coordinator for Gratz College. Dina has worked extensively in the field of Jewish Education, in both formal and informal settings.  She has served as a Hebrew School director, classroom teacher, youth director, camp counselor, program director, and consultant.  She was the founding chair of Monmouth County’s Commission on Jewish Education.  Dina has authored nineteen books and more than two dozen...

Louis Nagel currently serves as Education Director at Beth Shalom Congregation in Columbia, Maryland. His 30 year long career in synagogue school administration has spanned the Reform and Conservative movements, and small, medium, and large congregations. He has served in numerous leadership positions including Chairman of the Greater Washington Education Directors Council and President of the Jewish Educators Assembly (JEA), the Conservative movement’s education professionals’ organization. He has a BS in Early Childhood Education (University of Maryland), an MA in Jewish Studies (...

Carson Phillips, Ph.D., holds a B.A. from Memorial University of Newfoundland, a Graduate Diploma in Holocaust and Genocide Education from the University of Toronto, and an M.A. from York University. He earned his Ph.D. from York University; receiving the BMW Canada Award for Excellence from the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies. He has received numerous scholarly awards and fellowships including the Fleischer Award, Gertner Award, and the Klasner Fellowship from York University; the Alfred Lerner Fellowship from the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous; and the Hess Faculty...

Email: [email protected]

Monika Rice, Ph.D. is the Director of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Programs and Assistant Professor in the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Programs (M.A. and Ph.D.). A native of Poland, she holds an M.A. and B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, and a Ph.D. in Judaic Studies from Brandeis University.

Dr. Rice has taught many courses on the Holocaust, Jewish-Christian relations, and women’s spirituality. Her first book, “What! Still Alive?! Jewish Survivors in Poland and...

Biography

Dr. Ruth N. Sandberg is the Leonard and Ethel Landau Professor of Rabbinics at Gratz College, and is the Director of the BA in Jewish Studies and Jewsih Professional Studies and the MA in Interfaith Leadership.  She is  is a member of the board of Directors of the Insitute for Jewish-Catholic Relations at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, and served three years as the co-President of the...

David Keller Trevaskis, Esquire, is an attorney and former third grade teacher with a Master’s Degree in Education.   Trevaskis is the Pro Bono Coordinator for Legal Services for the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA), responsible for assisting local bar associations, legal services programs and other groups who offer pro bono legal services across the Commonwealth to help improve the access to justice for the neediest among us.  Trevaskis is involved in numerous clinics and other activities that provide support for those with legal needs.

Trevaskis has long been a champion of non-...

Nina Warnke holds a B.A. in Theatre History from Mount Holyoke College and a Ph.D. in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University. She has lectured and published extensively on Yiddish theatre and Yiddish literature. A forthcoming article will be included in the volume Women on the Yiddish Stage and among her most recent publications are an essay on representations of Shylock in Yiddish in Wrestling with Shylock and entries for the Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture. Over the past three decades, she served as a faculty member at Columbia University, Indiana University, the University...