In The Spotlight
Faculty, Staff and Students
The Ackerman Center celebrates the ongoing achievements of its faculty, staff and students. These highlights reflect our community’s dedication to Holocaust education, research and outreach.
Faculty
Dr. Nils Roemer, Stan and Barbara Rabin Distinguished Professor in Holocaust Studies
2025
- Gave a talk Victims, Witnesses and Perpetrators: Women’s Roles in the Bergen-Belsen Trials in the Women in the Holocaust International Study Circle (WHISC) panel on “Women as Perpetrators”. Watch the video here.
- Gave a talk Memory and Representation of the Holocaust and Other Genocide in the event, “Performing Arts, Memory and Human Rights” along with the Institute of Performing Arts, the Institute of Latin American and Caribbean Studies and University Cultural enter “Paco Urondo”, all from the University of Buenos Aires (Feb. 18-21). Watch the video here.
2023
- “East, West, and a Gendering of Jewish Tradition during the First World War,” ‘A Man in the Street, a Jew at Home:’ New Views on the Culture and Politics of East Central and East European Jewry (Wayne State University Press, 2023).
- “Hermann Levin Goldschmidt and the Futurology of an Uncertain Future,” Philosophy Today 67:3 (2023)
- Spoke in Tulsa, Oklahoma, regarding how Oklahoma school districts can start implementing a law mandating Holocaust education in public schools for sixth to 12th grades. Read the full story.
2022
- “Stanley Marcus: Fashioning a City,” Paul Lerner, Anne Schenderlein and Uwe Spiekerman, ed. Jewish Consumer Cultures in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Europe and North America (Palgrave Macmillian, 2022), 111-129.
- Op-Ed “Kanye West’s comments highlight need for more education on effects of hate speech: We must fight the uptick of antisemitism and Holocaust denial in our mainstream culture” published in The Dallas Morning News on Nov. 3. Read the full op-ed.
Dr. David Patterson, Hillel A. Feinberg Distinguished Chair of Holocaust Studies
2025
- “Night: Page One,” in Edward Gaffney, ed., Festschrift in Honor of Michael Berenbaum, Vol. 1 (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2025), pp. 30-35.
- “Back to the Beginning,” Chabad Lubavitch of Oxford, England, August 2025
- “ISGAP Oxford Summer Institute 2025,” Nishmat Am Congregation, Plano, August 2025
- “A Report on the ISGAP Oxford Summer Institute,” Mothers against Antisemitism on Campus Community Engagement Series, Dallas, August 2025
- “Antisemitism Morally Required in the Wake of Ten/Seven,” ISGAP Oxford Summer Institute, Oxford University, July 2025
- Joined the editorial board of the International Journal of Alterity (ISGAP) and the Scholars Academic Advisory Board for the Weitzman National Museum of Jewish American History.
2023
- Eighteen Words to Sustain a Life: A Jewish Father’s Ethical Will. Cascade Books, 2023.
Dr. Paula Cuellar Cuellar, Fellow, Jacqueline and Michael Wald Professor
2025
- Guest Scholar at the Loeb Alumni 55th Reunion, Harvard Graduate School of Design, November 13-16, 2025.
- Guest Speaker at the Museum of Memory and Tolerance (Mexico City) for two keynote lectures on October 30-31, 2025.
- Delivered the talk, “Oral History as a Tool to (Re)write and ‘Right’ History” at the 2025 Texas Conference on Introductory History Courses, October 25, 2025.
- Interviewed by Emma Gonzalez for Hispanic Heritage Month 2025. Read the full interview here.
- Delivered the talk “Entre la Memoria y la Manipulación: Fronteras Móviles de la Censura Cultural en El Salvador” at the first meeting of International lecture Series “From South to North and from North to South: Performing Arts and Human Rights”, on October 2, 2025, as part of an ongoing collaboration between the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology at the University of Texas at Dallas, the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, and the Instituto de Artes del Espectáculo (IAE), Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). Watch the livestream here.
- Featured speaker in the event “Bocafloja in Conversation with Paula Cuellar Cuellar” as part of the Hay Festival Forum, Dallas. Read more here.
- Elected Co-Chair of the Central American Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) for the period 2025–2028. Read more here.
- Moderated a panel discussion in the event, “Performing Arts, Memory and Human Rights” along with the Institute of Performing Arts, the Institute of Latin American and Caribbean Studies and University Cultural enter “Paco Urondo”, all from the University of Buenos Aires (Feb. 18-21). Watch the video here.
- Featured by the UT Dallas News Center in the article “Historian Gives Voice to Narratives Nearly Lost in Conflicts”. Read the full article.
Staff
Dr. Mehak Burza, Program Coordinator for Online Global Initiatives
2025
- Delivered a guest lecture titled “Every Relationship has its own Auschwitz: Understanding Bawaal in Context” in Dr. Hanno Berger’s class, Transnational Film and Video on October 30, 2025.
- Gave a talk The Glamour of Cruelty: Women Who Held the Whip in the Women in the Holocaust International Study Circle (WHISC) panel on “Women as Perpetrators”. Watch the video here.
- Telling the Untold: Dr. Mehak Burza on Women, Storytelling, and Holocaust Memory. Featured interview by the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology. Read the full story.
- “From Ashes to Lessons: The 80-Year Echo of Auschwitz.” Article published in the Athenaeum Review, a publication of the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology and the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at The University of Texas at Dallas. Read the full article.
Dr. Cindy Seton-Rogers, Academic and Outreach Events Manager
2025
- Presented “Digital Distortion: American Antisemitism, Holocaust Memory, and the Role of Social Media and AI” at the International Conference on Confronting Holocaust Distortion in the Digital Era at the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland on 20 November 2025.
- Appointed a Fellow of The London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism in November 2025.
- Gave an invited lecture at the 2025 American Historical Association’s Texas Conference titled “Pedagogical Approaches to Teaching the Holocaust” on Oct. 24, 2025.
- Presented “Blood Libel in the Borderlands: Accusations of Ritual Murder and Their Enduring Influence on Modern Antisemitism” at the International Council on Central and Eastern European Studies Conference in Montenegro on Sept. 28, 2025.
- Was appointed co-editor of H-Net Network on Judaica and Jewish History in September 2025.
- Partnered with Rabbi Holly Levin Cohn to establish the first North Texas branch of Living Links – an organization created to empower grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Read the full story.
- Earned her PhD in History of Ideas in May 2025. Her dissertation, titled Beyond the Periphery: Reframing the Narrative of American Antisemitism, contributes to a more nuanced understanding of antisemitism’s role in American history while challenging conventional narratives about Jewish experiences in the United States.
- Presented “Prejudice on Trial: The Rise of Antisemitism in Early Twentieth-Century America” at Åbo Akademi University, Finland on Jan. 29, 2025.
Center Recognition
- March 2022: Nearly 4,000 books and archival materials from two leading Holocaust scholars have been donated to the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies. The donation, compiled by Dr. Marcia Littell and her late husband the Rev. Dr. Franklin Littell, makes the Ackerman Center the second largest collection of Holocaust and genocide books in the Americas. Read the full story.
- The Spring 2022 issue of UT Dallas Magazine featured an article titled Never Again, highlighting the Ackerman Center and the Holocaust Studies Program at UT Dallas. Read the full article.