Hema Panesar has just joined the USC Shoah Foundation education team as coordinator of educational programs, bringing experience in digital education, museums and history.

Panesar received her bachelor’s degree in history from UC Berkeley and master’s in museum studies from New York University. Her master’s thesis was titled “Digitize Me: Museum Educators and Their Digital Oriented Visitors,” and it focused on how museum visitors are becoming more central to the museum experience, particularly digitally and online.

Before joining USC Shoah Foundation, she contributed to the national traveling exhibit The Guantánamo Public Memory Project. Panesar also has experience doing outreach and coordinating large events and projects at museums and other non-profits organizations, including The Rubin Museum of Art, The Royal Oak Foundation, and The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

As coordinator of educational programs, Panesar will manage the education department’s calendar of IWitness training sessions held around the world and assist the Institute’s regional consultants, who lead the trainings. She will also do outreach and communications for the IWitness Video Challenge and other education projects and events.

Panesar said she feels a connection to the Institute’s mission because of her passion for social justice and public education. Her family also has a history of persecution: her grandparents are survivors of the retributive genocide during the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, and her mother lost family members in the anti-Sikh riots after the assassination of Indira Ghandi in 1984.

During her time at USC Shoah Foundation, she hopes to become a leader, and is particularly determined to overhaul the scheduling of training sessions and workshops to create a document that is efficient and works for all education staff. She also wants to create a network of teachers and organizations who are using USC Shoah Foundation’s resources.