Faculty and Staff
Lisa Fishbayn Joffe is the Shulamit Reinharz Director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and directs the HBI Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and Law. She teaches in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department. Her research and teaching focus on gender issues at the intersection of secular and religious law, the rights of parents and children in family law disputes, and Jewish perspectives on reproductive rights. Her publications include the books Women’s Rights And Religious Law: Domestic and International Perspectives, The Polygamy Question, and Gender, Religion And Family Law: Theorizing Conflicts Between Women’s Rights And Cultural Traditions. She is on the editorial team at Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's and Gender Studies and is editor of both the HBI Series on Jewish Women and the Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law for Brandeis University Press. Dr. Joffe is a co-founder of the Boston Agunah Taskforce, devoted to research, education and advocacy on behalf of women seeking divorce under Jewish family law and a member of the steering committee of Cheirut, an international coalition of agunah advocates. Trained as a lawyer, she holds law degrees from Osgoode Hall, York University, and Harvard Law School.
Olivia Baldwin has been organizing and curating exhibitions and arts programs for the past decade. Her experiences working within artist-led spaces, nonprofits, interdisciplinary festivals, universities, and museums inform her collaborative curatorial approach. She holds a BFA in Art and a BA In English/Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Connecticut. As a practicing artist, Baldwin exhibits widely and teaches studio art at colleges throughout New England.
Johanna Jacobson has journeyed through technology training, non-profit fundraising, residing at the Harvard Business School/HBS for the past nearly half decade, delightedly joining the HBI as Coordinator in Spring 2024.
Debby Olins joined the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute in 2000. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Olins oversees all HBI's academic programs including: the HBI Research Awards, the Scholar-in-Residence Program, HBI Internship Program, the HBI Artist-in-Residence Program and the HBI Translation Competition.
Dr. Edith Pick is a postdoctoral associate at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, and a lecturer at the Hornstein program and the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department at Brandeis. Dr. Pick holds a Ph.D. in Business and Management from Queen Mary University of London, and in her dissertation explored “the construction of diversity and difference in UK Jewish nonprofit organisations.” Situated in the field of management and organization studies, her work examines how identity is experienced, imagined and managed in Jewish organizations, and how the complexity and diversity of Jewish identity can generate new insights around work, diaspora and social justice. Read more about Dr. Pick and her work at HBI.
Amy Sessler Powell has been writing for local and national news organizations for 30 years. Prior to working at HBI, Powell was associate editor of the Jewish Journal in Salem, Mass. and publicity director for the Lappin Foundation. Earlier in her career, she worked at several local newspapers and was part of the inaugural team for the Boston Globe North section. She is also a private college essay coach. Powell received a BA from Tufts University and an MS from Boston University. Her work has appeared in Parenting Magazine, Patch.com, RandomHousekids.com, Interfaithfamily.com, Lamaze.com, Twins Magazine and others.
Terri Brown Preuss is the director of the Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series and the HBI Senior Program Coordinator. She joined HBI in 2017 and is a graduate of Boston University where she received her BA in History with a minor in Women’s Studies. She also received her JD from Northeastern University School of Law. Preuss comes to the HBI with a great deal of experience in program development and management from her years as an active volunteer and Board member at the Solomon Schechter Day School in Newton, MA. She is trained as a lawyer and early in her career clerked for the Hon. Nancy Gertner (ret.) and worked at the ACLU of Massachusetts as an intake attorney focusing on civil rights and civil liberties.
Abby serves as librarian to the WSRC/HBI scholars, staff and students. She received a BA from Alfred University; a MA in American history from the University of Delaware; and a Master of Library Science from Simmons School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College.
Cheryl Weiner became HBI's Engagement Specialist in 2024. She has been the Gilda Slifka Internship Academic Supervisor since 2022. Cheryl earned a MPH from Boston University and a PhD from Lesley University. Her dissertation, which focused on how Jewish activist girls navigate their relationship to voice, visibility and representation, grew from many years of working with Jewish adolescent girls. Cheryl has played an instrumental role in helping organizations scale their programs and initiatives, including The Women's Lunch Place, The Girlhood Project, and Moving Traditions. She also served as an adjunct professor at Lesley University, where she taught courses on Research Methods; Girlhood: Girl Culture and Identity; Race, Class, and Gender; and Women in Culture and Society.