Janet Krasner Aronson, PhD
Associate Director
Janet Krasner Aronson, PhD is the associate director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University. Janet's primary research areas include local Jewish community studies, and she has directed studies in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Washington, DC, Palm Beach County, FL and Cincinnati, among many other communities. She is interested in emerging trends in Jewish engagement and how best to measure, understand, and respond to these trends.
Janet earned her PhD in social policy at the Heller School for Social Policy at Brandeis where she examined the impact of Birthright Israel on the parents of the participants. Prior to joining CMJS, she worked as a computer programmer, a graphic designer, and religious school teacher. She was a member of the first cohort of the Barnard College/Jewish Theological Seminary double-degree program, in which she earned bachelor's degrees in computer science and Bible. She has an MA in applied sociology from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.