Staff

Learn more about our Institute team

Leadership
Robert Williams, PhD
Executive Director

Dr. Robert J. Williams is the Finci-Viterbi Executive Director of USC Shoah Foundation. He is UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education and the Advisor to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, where he also served for four years as chair of the Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial.

Amy Carnes, PhD
Acting Chief of Staff

Amy Marczewski Carnes, PhD, completed her doctorate in French at UCLA in 2007 and worked at Human Rights Watch in Los Angeles before starting at USC Shoah Foundation in 2008.

Sam Gustman
Chief Technology Officer and Associate Dean of the USC Shoah Foundation and USC Libraries

Sam Gustman has been chief technology officer (CTO) of the Shoah Foundation since 1994. Gustman is also associate dean and CTO at the USC Libraries where he oversees IT for the Libraries and started the USC Digital Repository.

Jenna Leventhal
Interim Director of Programs

Jenna Leventhal is the Interim Director of Programs at USC Shoah Foundation.

Kate Canada Obregon, PhD
Director of Marketing and Communications

Kate Canada Obregon, Ph.D. is the USC Shoah Foundation's Director of Marketing and Communications. Before this role, she served as a Managing Partner at Oishii Creative, a creative and brand strategy firm working with companies such as EA Games, FOX, NBC-Universal, NFL Network, Scripps Media, Disney, and Discovery.

Cynthia Schirmer
Director of Budget and Finance

Cynthia Schirmer currently oversees the finances and business operations of the Institute.

Andrea Waldron
Assistant Vice President, Advancement

Meet our Team
Sandra Aguilar
Manager, Metadata

Sandra Aguilar oversees metadata, indexing, and institutional archiving.

Sedda Antekelian
Education and Outreach Specialist, Armenian Genocide

Sedda Antekelian develops educational content, programming and community partnerships utilizing Armenian Genocide testimony collections.

Alan Auyeung
Video Archivist & Post-Production Specialist

Alan Auyeung oversees the collection, management and transfer area of broadcast video equipment; administers educational, instructional and referen

Nita Awatramani
Information Security Officer

Doug Ballman
Technical Project Leader

Doug works in the Institute’s technology group as a Technical Project Leader on a variety of different technology projects including the current, m

Crispin Brooks
Curator

Crispin Brooks is the curator of the Institute’s Visual History Archive. He holds a M.Phil.

David Brown
Senior Systems Administrator

Mills Chang
Senior Software Architect

Mills Chang is the Senior Software Architect leading the software development of USC Shoah Foundation ITS Department.

Lesly Culp
Director of Education and Outreach

Lesly Culp is USC Shoah Foundation’s Interim Director of Education and Outreach.

Noah Ehrlich
Associate Director, Annual Giving

Noah began his role as Associate Director of Annual Giving for USC Shoah Foundation in 2021.

Daryn Eller
Archivist

Daryn Eller manages the Institute’s institutional media collection and participates in cataloging the Visual History Archive testimonies.

Ryan Fenton-Strauss
Interim Director, Media and Archives

Ryan Fenton-Strauss manages the video archive and post-production team.  He joined the USC Shoah Foundation in 2003, and oversees the digitization

Lindsay Friedman
Program Director

Lindsay manages Echoes & Reflections, the Institute's flagship Holocaust Education program with ADL and Yad Vashem.

Inna Gogina
Archivist

Inna Gogina is the archivist of the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.

Georgiana Gomez
Access Supervisor

Zachary Goode
Post-Production Supervisor

Zachary Goode fulfills most filming and editing requests that come to ITS.  He also helps oversee the digitization and quality control of new colle

Ita Gordon
Indexer

Ita is a cataloguer and indexer of Holocaust survivors testimonies. She also worked as a translator.

Kathy Guyton
Office Manager, ITS

Rachel Herman
Content Management Specialist

Rachel Herman helps curate content for IWitness and other educational programs.  Rachel received her M.A.

Francesca Innocenti
Operations Liaison

Francesca is the Liaison between Operations and other Shoah Foundation departments as well as visitors, scholars, and guests.   Other responsibilit

Greg Irwin
Head of Content Management

Greg Irwin manages the content and development of IWitness, the Institute’s educational website.

Sandhya Venkat Iyer
Senior Software Engineer

Sandhya Iyer is a Senior Programmer at USC Shoah Foundation.

Karen Kim, PhD
Senior Research Associate

Karen Kim is the senior researcher and evaluator for the USC Shoah Foundation.

Monika Koszyńska
Regional Consultant, Poland

Monika Koszyńska, USC Shoah Foundation education specialist since 2011, lives in Warsaw, Poland.

Jeffrey Langham, PhD
Webmaster

Jeffrey Langham oversees the management and the strategic development of the Institute's website.

Zach Larkin
Program Management Officer

Zach Larkin supports the Institute’s Managing Director and Executive Office through his involvement in stewardship strategies, content development,

Akhila Marupaduga
Quality Assurance Engineer

Susan McKibben, PhD
Program Manager

Prior to joining the USC Shoah Foundation she was Administrative Director of the USC Rossier School of Education's Center on Education Policy, Equity and Governance.

Grace Nielsen
Marketing Coordinator

Grace develops content and strategies to promote the Institute’s programs. Grace received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and her master’s in public relations and advertising from USC Annenberg. While studying at USC, Grace worked with USC Shoah Foundation as the Celina Biniaz Intern.

Anita Pace
Managing Director of Technology

Anita Pace, Director of Technology for the Shoah Foundation Institute at the University of Southern California, is responsible for ov

Alex Paiva, Jr
Programmer Analyst III

Alex Paiva Jr is a programmer helping build the Dimension in Testimony platform by using AI services to allow for an interactive experience with te

Larina Palacpac
Business Operations Coordinator

Larina Palacpac supports the financial management of the Institute by assisting in account reconciliation, budget development and financial reporti

Rachel Peacock
Production Coordinator

Rachel Peacock has a B.S. in Telecommunications Production from University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications.

Jayne Perilstein
Executive Director of Development

Jayne joined USC Shoah Foundation in 2012, and is based in New York and Philadelphia.

Badema Pitic, PhD
Acting Head of Research Services

Badema Pitic joined the Center for Advanced Genocide Research in 2017, where she is involved in the Center's outreach and academic programming dire

Susan Popler
Director of Distribution

Susan Popler is Director of the Visual History Archive Program where she is driving initiatives to reimagine how audiences access, engage with and

Matthew Rabin
Senior Director of Development

Since December 2021 Matthew Rabin has served as Senior Director of Development for USC Shoah Foundation, coming from his prior role as Chief Develo

Zovaira Rodriguez
Procurement Specialist

Zovaira Rodriguez is the Procurement Specialist for the USC Shoah Foundation and has been with the institute for 3 years.

Michael Russell
Programmer Analyst

Michael Russell is a lead web developer at USC Shoah foundation.

Arie Salma
Programming Analyst III

Arie Salma is a web developer and program analyst for the Shoah Foundation. He specializes in front end, back end and CMS development.

Lacey Schauwecker, PhD
Program and Development Lead

Lacey manages higher education programs and partners closely with students, faculty, and other campus organizations.

Jeff Schulz
Senior Software Engineer

Jeff Schulz is a Senior Software Engineer leading the Angular development for USC Shoah Foundation's interactive web sites.

Martin Šmok
Regional Consultant, Czech Republic

Richard Starr
Application Programmer

Andrea Szőnyi
International Education Consultant

Andrea Szőnyi is based in Budapest (Hungary) and oversees the Institute's international educational programs including content development, profess

Hoan Tran
UNIX System Administrator

Hoan Tran oversees the data archival and storage infrastructure for the Institute’s content.

Edith Umugiraneza
Indexer

Edith Umugiraneza joined the USC Shoah Foundation in 2009 as a consultant and later became an indexer.

Svetlana Ushakova
Program Specialist

Svetlana Ushakova provides the service of research, annotation, and evaluation to the Dimensions in Testimony program.

Consolée Uwamariya
Preservation Supervisor

Chetham Visweswar
Senior Software Engineer

Nicole Watkins
Director of Donor Relations

Nicole Watkins serves as the Director of Donor Relations for USC Shoah Foundation’s Advancement team and is responsible for managing our donor rela

Mark Weicht
Video Archivist and Post Production Specialist

Mark Weicht is a Video Archivist and Post Production Specialist.

Cate Wilson, PhD
Manager of Organizational Engagement and Strategic Partnership

Cate Wilson is the Community Engagement and Outreach specialist for the USC Shoah Foundation’s education department.

Daphne Yang
Program Specialist

Daphne Yang is an annotation specialist in the Dimensions in Testimony program.

Letisha Young
Senior Office Manager

Letisha Young joined the Shoah Foundation in July of 2017 as the Program Manager of Administrative Programs.

Aaron Zarrow
Acting Manager, Curation

On staff since 2011, strategic communications manager Aaron Zarrow joined the organization for the first time in 1995 as a production assistant.

In Memoriam
Kim Simon
Managing Director (In Memoriam)

Having been at the Institute for 25 years, Kim Simon was involved in developing and scaling the Institute’s impact and reach globally. She directed the development and implementation of key public engagement programs that connect USC Shoah Foundation to its many distinct audiences.

Emeritus Staff

Karen Jungblut

Stephen D. Smith

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