Benjamin Biniaz is a sophomore at Yale University. During his 2016 summer break he is interning with USC Shoah Foundation’s communication department. His family has been involved with the Institute for many years since his grandmother Celina Biniaz and great- grandmother Phyllis Karp gave their testimonies to the Visual History Archive in 1996.
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Jenna Leventhal is the associate director of education - digital engagement and oversees IWitness. She received her master’s in public history from the University of Houston and in 2011 joined the staff of the USC Shoah Foundation to work on IWitness, while the educational website was still undergoing testing and development. Leventhal was first introduced to the USC Shoah Foundation as an undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara, working on a project for a public history course.
USC Professor of History Wolf Gruner directs USC Dornsife Center for Advance Genocide Research and sets its research agenda. Gruner also holds the Shapell- Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies at the university. An internationally recognized expert on genocide, Gruner has published 10 books and numerous articles on the Holocaust in Europe as well as on mass violence against indigenous people in Latin America.
Kátia Lerner worked as interviewer and Regional Assistant Coordinator for USC Shoah Foundation in Rio de Janeiro from 1996 to 1999. After that period, she continued her work as liaison until 2012. Katia received an MA in Social Communication and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology, both at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Her thesis analyzes the process of shaping the memory of the Holocaust taking as object of study the then called Survivors of the Holocaust Visual History Foundation (from 1994 to 2001).
Jeannie Woods is a seventh and eighth grade language arts teacher at Fort Payne Middle School in Fort Payne, Alabama. Woods was one of the 25 educators who participated in the Auschwitz: The Past is Present professional development program in January 2015.
Robert Hadley taught high school for nearly 20 years before coming to the USC Shoah Foundation as a Regional Consultant earlier this year. He conducts teacher training on using IWitness in the classroom all around the country with a focus on the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. He is also very involved in social justice issue locally in Portland, Oregon and teacher training internationally.
USC Shoah Foundation archivist Sandra Aguilar interprets and formats information and details about the interviewees and the interviews to be brought into the database systems of the Visual History Archive. She is also a liaison between USC Shoah Foundation’s research specialists and database programmers to develop ways for the testimonies to be searched and experienced.
Muscologist Matt Lawson recently submitted his PhD thesis, focussing on the music used in German depictions of the Holocaust on screen. His early research has been disseminated at conferences across the UK, and also at international events in Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Germany and the USA. He completed his undergraduate honours degree in Music at Huddersfield in 2009, and his MA with distinction from the University of York (2012).
Charlotte Masters is a junior at Sidwell Friends in Washington DC. In 2015 she traveled to Poland as a junior intern for the Auschwitz: Past is Present program. After the trip she created the Survivors Speakers Bureau, to bring survivor’s voices into schools in the greater DC area. Charlotte continues as a junior intern with USC Shoah Foundation mentoring the younger students.