The Fortunoff Archive’s Teacher Advisory Council brings together teachers who advise the archive’s curriculum development and professional learning programming. These dedicated educators teach in public and independent high schools and middle schools in urban, suburban, and rural settings throughout Connecticut and across the country. Their advice and insights help ensure that the Fortunoff Archive’s curriculum materials are both rigorous and accessible to students with diverse backgrounds and learning styles. The council meets monthly throughout the school year and welcomes new members each summer.
If you would like to learn more or join the council, please fill out this interest form.
Council Members
Stu Abrams
Avon High School Avon, CTStuart Abrams teaches Genocide Studies, Social Psychology, and Human Rights at Avon High School in Avon, Connecticut. He has received many honors and awards for his teaching, including the Mandel Teacher Fellowship at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2000. In 2010, he was invited by the USHMM to travel to Poland with nine other American educators to discuss the future of Holocaust and genocide education with their Polish counterparts. He is the recipient of the Korzenik Fellowship for excellence in Holocaust Education awarded by the Greenberg Center at the University of Hartford, and he was the 2010 Teacher of the Year at Avon Public Schools. In 2011, he received the Prudence Crandall Award from the Connecticut Education Association’s Human and Civil Rights Commission. He is the author of the chapter “Memorials, Monuments, and the Obligation of Memory” in the 2020 volume Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust, edited by Laura Hilton and Avinoam Patt.
Joe Goldman
E.O. Smith High School Mansfield, CTJoseph Goldman currently teaches at E.O. Smith High School in Storrs-Mansfield, Connecticut. He has been teaching for twelve years at the secondary level, focusing on Civics, US History, and Genocide Studies. He also served as an adjunct faculty member for the University of Connecticut’s Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates for two years. In both roles, he focuses on civic engagement and opportunities to invite students to participate in discourse and dialogue in the classroom. In the summer of 2022, he and his students participated in filming a PBS special on the rise of antisemitism in Connecticut and efforts to combat it through education.
Lisa High Greenwald, PhD
Stuyvesant High School New York, NYLisa Greenwald is a scholar of French feminism and author of Daughters of 1968: Redefining Feminism and the Women's Liberation Movement (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). She spent almost a decade working in and researching the women's movement in France, supported by an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship and grants from the French government. She has worked as a consultant and in-house historian for a variety of nonprofits and foundations in France, Chicago, and New York. She teaches Global and AP US History at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, where she is the recipient of a Flag Foundation for Excellence in Teaching Award and a two-time recipient of the University of Chicago's Outstanding Educator Award for high school teachers. She earned her PhD in Modern European History from Emory University.
LaTaè Johnson
Lincoln High SchoolPhiladelphia, PALaTaè Johnson has been a history teacher in Philadelphia since 2020. Initially, she taught at the Mathematics, Civics and Sciences Charter School, and she currently teaches World History at Lincoln High School. She holds a BA in International Studies and an MA in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from Arcadia University. She has studied in Cuba, England, Sweden, and Greece, and worked with non-profit organizations focusing on women and girls in Ghana and Philadelphia. She is a regular contributor to Philadelphia-based Commoner News and Love & Wisdom, published by the Young Korean Academy.
Beth Krasemann
Colorado Rocky Mountain School Carbondale, COBeth Krasemann currently teaches at Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale, Colorado. She has been teaching for twenty five years and throughout this time she has been refining her craft to create a truly student-centered classroom. She has created inquiries that are driven by questions with no clear answers to engage student interest. Her classes are centered on pursuing possible answers to open-ended inquiries and then—acting and thinking like historians—students formulate, reason, and craft their own deep understandings. In 2022, she published the book Teaching Holocaust by Inquiry. She holds a BA in History from Williams College, and an MA in History Teacher Education from Brown University.
Paul Kutner
Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy Rockville, MDAfter teaching French for seventeen years, Paul Kutner currently teaches Jewish History and English Literature at Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy in Rockville, Maryland. He has been teaching and researching the Holocaust, with a focus on the Righteous Among the Nations, and has recorded over forty hours of interviews with survivors and rescuers; one of these interviews is now held at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He uses scholarship and archival materials in his teaching and speaking engagements, and has curated a Holocaust exhibit at the Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College, CUNY. He holds an undergraduate degree in International Law, Organizations and Ethics from Georgetown University and is completing a master’s degree in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Yeshiva University, where he is a Sacks Scholar for Ethics and Entrepreneurship, working on a project to combat Holocaust distortion.
Jaclyn Levesque
Vinal Technical High SchoolMiddletown, CTJaclyn Levesque began her teaching career in 2019 at the Engineering and Science University Magnet School in New Haven, where she taught a wide range of courses including Social Justice, Introduction to Sociology, AP Psychology, AP United States History, United States History, and University of Connecticut’s Early College Experience History 1501 and 1502. She holds an MA in History and an MS in Teacher Leadership from Central Connecticut State University. In addition to her classroom work, she was the Senior Educator and Assistant Director of Summer Programs at Discovering Amistad, where she taught students the history of the Amistad Rebellion onboard the schooner Amistad and in classrooms throughout Connecticut. Her research interests include Civil War memory and best practices for teaching historical thinking skills. She currently teaches Civics and World History at Vinal Technical High School in Middletown, Connecticut.
Bob Osborne
Hill Regional Career High School New Haven, CTBob Osborne has been teaching for 23 years and has been with New Haven Public Schools since 2007. He was also an adjunct faculty member at the University of New Haven Graduate School of Education. He currently teaches US History and AP World History at Hill Regional Career High School in New Haven. His teaching is informed by his visits to Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as well as the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. He holds an undergraduate History degree from Dartmouth College, and three Masters degrees, two from Fairfield University and one from Wesleyan University.
Lauren Peck
Donald Eichhorn Middle School and Lewisburg Area High SchoolLewisburg, PALauren Peck has been teaching English Language Arts and Gifted Education for eleven years. She holds a BA in Secondary Education and English Literature from Gordon College and a MEd in Curriculum and Instruction for Literacy Intervention from Lesley University. She centers student equity and autonomy in her classroom and is passionate about bringing the humanities and STEM into the English curriculum. Her teaching career began on the north shore of Boston, and she currently teaches in Central Pennsylvania. She is a proud Facing History educator who knows that learning about the complexities of our past will help us build a more just future.
Maurice P. Rapp
Tower Hill School Wilmington, DEMaurice Rapp is a history teacher and Director of Global Initiatives at Tower Hill School in Wilmington, Delaware. He holds a BA in History and Political Science from Elizabethtown College, an MA in Political Science from Villanova University, and an MA in Diplomatic History from Lehigh University. In his teaching, his main goal is to promote an interactive and student-centered classroom atmosphere in which students ask thought-provoking questions, conduct rigorous historical investigations, and reflect on their own knowledge transformation.
Lindsey Rossler
King School Stamford, CTLindsey Rossler has been teaching for sixteen years and is currently a history teacher at King School in Stamford, Connecticut. She holds an MA from Teachers College at Columbia University, BA in History and Political Science from Emory University, and a Certificate in Gifted Education from the University of Connecticut. She teaches World History, advises student activities, and creates curriculum in partnership with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. She approaches teaching through the lens of how we treat one another, and focuses on student thinking, empathy, and defending human rights. Prior to teaching at King School, she taught Global History, Early American History, and college-level International Relations at Hunter College High School in New York City.
Colleen Simon
Solomon Schechter Day SchoolWest Hartford, CTColleen Simon has been teaching for over thirty years. She is currently a middle school Humanities teacher at Solomon Schechter Day School in West Hartford, CT. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Voices of Hope, an organization founded by the families of Holocaust survivors in Connecticut. She is also on the Education Committee of the Sousa Mendes Foundation and the Center for Genocide Research and Education. She was a Teacher Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and a participant in the USHMM Conference for Holocaust Education Centers. She is a PhD candidate in the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Program at Gratz College, where her research focuses on the role of choice and acts of rescue by Americans during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Colleen Tambuscio
New Milford High SchoolNew Milford, NJColleen Tambuscio is a Special Education and General Education teacher who has been involved in education for 36 years. During her teaching career, she developed a semester-long Holocaust course and annually travels to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for a two-day seminar with students. She was a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Teacher Fellow in 1998. Since then, she has been taking students to Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland to study the Holocaust. Since 2001, she has been the President of the New Jersey Council of Holocaust Educators, and she was appointed to the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education in 2021.
Stephan Theilig, PhD
Campus Oberbarnimschule Eberswalde, GermanyStephan Theilig holds a PhD in History, and has conducted research and worked in museums. His research has explored military history, Eastern European history, and the history of Islam in Europe. He teaches History and Spanish at Oberbarnimschule, a high school in Eberswalde, Germany, outside of Berlin. His teaching emphasizes student project work, exchanges with other schools, and collaborative projects with colleagues.
Katelyn Botsford Tucker
Shelton Middle SchoolShelton, CTKatelyn Botsford Tucker is a Social Studies teacher at Shelton Middle School in Shelton, CT, and the 2019 recipient of the Connecticut Council for Social Studies Excellence in Teaching Award. She holds an MEd from Sacred Heart University and an MA in American Studies from Fairfield University. She has worked as an Assistant Editor for the Connecticut History Review and participated in the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History's collaborative, international teaching institute between South Africa and the United States. She has published articles in Connecticut History Review and has written for Open Court Publishers.
Ruth-Terry Walden
Westhill High School Stamford, CTRuth-Terry Walden has a background in law and for the last twenty years she has taught literature at Westhill High School. She treats students as her educational partners, and values global equity and gender equality in the classroom. She teaches from a protest literature perspective, focusing on protest, resistance, and empowerment—historically and in contemporary pop culture. She is active in Connecticut’s Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning Collective and visited Hungary as a 2022 Fulbright Hays Teacher Participant.