ABOUT ME

Public history is my passion. Through nearly twenty years in the field leading the programs and projects of major cultural and historical institutions in the U.S., I've had the chance to see how history and scholarship--creatively and engagingly shared with the public--can make an impact.

 

I currently serve as the inaugural director of the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University, a new center that brings historical scholarship and historical perspective to bear on contemporary global issues. In the past, whether it was bringing researchers from around the world to the Library of Congress John W. Kluge Center and communicating their scholarship to policymakers and the public, or building a nationwide network of volunteers to collect, preserve, and make accessible the stories of America's war veterans for the Veterans History Project, the programs we've developed have changed people's lives for the better.

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In my career to-date I've had the opportunity to:

 

• Travel to the Dominican Republic to preserve the documents of its Jewish community;

• Travel to Europe twice to speak to policymakers and government officials about media literacy and historical literacy on behalf of the U.S. Department of State;

• Curate (with others) the award-winning exhibition Ours to Fight For: American Jews in the Second World War;

• Serve on the Boards of the Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region (OHMAR) and the Esperanza Education Fund;  

• Create a history podcast; 

• Host history YouTube videos ;

• Create the field of History Communication;

• Invent the "lightning conversation";

• Lead a partnership between historians and journalists that was featured by the Nieman Lab at Harvard;

• Serve on several task forces and working groups to devise the future of history, the humanities and open access.

 

As a manager, leader, fundraiser, curator, archivist, oral historian, researcher, lecturer, registrar, film director and Board member, I've devoted my career to sharing history with the world and advocating for a more intelligent and informed citizenry based on knowledge of our past. I've held positions at:

 

• U.S. Library of Congress

• New-York Historical Society

• Museum of Jewish Heritage

• Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame

• Museo Judio de Sosua

• New York Public Library

• Villanova University

• Yeshiva University

• St. Thomas University

• American History Workshop

• Center for Jewish History

• Museum of Chinese in America

I love to think, write, and communicate about the future of public history in America, and I work every day to make a better, more inspired, and more educated world. I earned my B.A. in American Studies from The George Washington University and my M.A. in History and Archival Management from New York University. I'm originally from White Plains, New York.