USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research’s newest staff member may have just graduated from USC, but she is already a very familiar face around USC Shoah Foundation.Shefali Deshpande has just completed her second week at the Center for Advanced Genocide Research, where she is assisting director Wolf Gruner with the Center’s upcoming events and administration. She graduated with a bachelor’s in political science and musical theater in May 2015.

Musician and music scholar Alexandra Birch will discuss the resistance demonstrated by one of the 20th century’s most renowned composers, Dmitri Shostakovich, in her presentation at the Music as Resistance to Genocide academic symposium.