Miriam Raider-Roth is the Director of Mandel Teacher Educator Institute. She is a faculty member at the University of Cincinnati where she serves as a professor of Educational Studies and Educational/Community-Based Action Research, and directs the Action Research Center. She is also a founding co-director of the Center for Studies of Jewish Education and Culture at UC. Her research focuses on the relational context of teaching and learning, action research and feminist qualitative research methods. She is author of Professional Development in Relational Learning Communities: Teachers in Connection (2017). Her research interests include how relational learning communities contribute to teachers’ transformative learning in professional development settings.

Gail Dorph is the Founding Director of the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute. Her research interests are teacher development and the relationship between Judaic content and pedagogy. Prior to her work with the Mandel Foundation, she directed the Graduate Center for Jewish Education at American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism). In addition to teaching, she consults with communal organizations, universities, and schools on the creation of professional programs for principals and teachers. Gail is author of numerous articles reflecting the ongoing research on MTEI.

Seymour Kopelowitz is a Mandel Foundation Program Director. His primary area of focus is the Foundation’s Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI) program. He joined the Foundation as a consultant in 2005 and moved into his current role in 2013. Prior to joining the Foundation, Seymour served as Director of the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland (JEC), where he frequently worked with the Foundation on various initiatives. He has also served as a teacher, a day school principal, and Director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the national umbrella body for South African Jewry. Seymour holds a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Kent State University and an M.B.A. from the University of Cape Town. He is a graduate of the Mandel Jerusalem Fellows program and holds multiple endorsements from the Ohio Department of Education, including a superintendent’s license. Seymour is married to Gail Kopelowitz and enjoys classical music.

Barry W. Holtz is the Theodore and Florence Baumritter Professor of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. From 2008 to 2013 he served as Dean of the Seminary’s William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. Barry is a long-time consultant to the Mandel Foundation and has been on the faculty of MTEI since the program first began. His books include Textual Knowledge: Teaching the Bible in Theory and in Practice, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Education in 2004 and was closely related to his work at MTEI.

Elie Holzer is a practice-oriented philosopher of Jewish education, who holds rabbinical ordination and a Ph.D. in Jewish thought. His research attends to to the intellectual, ethical and spiritual dimensions of havruta text study; the hermeneutics of “otherness and self” in the teaching and learning of Hasidic homilies; the hermeneutics and spiritual pedagogies of niggun. Elie has served as a faculty member of MTEI since 1997. He co-directed and taught in the Beit Midrash for Teachers in the DeLeT program at Brandeis University. He is the author of the winner of the 2014 National Jewish Book Award, A Philosophy of Havruta: Understanding and Teaching the Art of Text Study in Pairs (Brighton: Academic Studies Press, 2013) with Orit Kent, which grew out of his work in both of these contexts, and he published Attuned Learning: Rabbinic Texts on Habits of the Heart in Learning Interactions (Academic Studies Press, 2016). Elie lives in Jerusalem and serves as Professor at the School of Education of Bar Ilan University, where he also holds the R. Dr. Ochs Chair for Teaching Jewish Religious Studies.

Kathy Simon holds a B.A. in English and Hebrew Literature from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Teacher Education from Stanford University. A former high school English and drama teacher, Kathy co-directed the Coalition of Essential Schools, a national school-reform organization. Kathy is the author and co-author of several books on curriculum, teaching, and school reform, including Moral Questions in the Classroom, Teaching as Inquiry, and Choosing Small. Kathy has served on the faculty of the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute since 2006. She also is a certified trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication, and leads communication courses and workshops for couples, parents, teachers, and non-profit organizations.

Jeff Stanzler is a faculty member at the University of Michigan School of Education, working in teacher education and digital media, and directing the Interactive Communications and Simulations (ICS) group, which facilitates mentored simulations and writing projects for K-12 students worldwide. Jeff is on the faculty of the Master of Arts in Educational Studies with Secondary Teacher Certification (MAC) Program and the Michigan Community Scholars Program, and is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, and the Program in Intergroup Relations. He is also a founding board member of InGlobal Learning Design, an organization that supports educational innovators in K-12, university, and business settings.

Jennifer Lewis earned her Ph.D. in teacher education and mathematics education at the University of Michigan. Previous to her graduate studies, Jenny taught elementary and middle school for ten years. She is currently the Executive Director of Educator Excellence for Detroit Public Schools Community District, on leave from her position as associate professor of mathematics education at Wayne State University in Detroit. Jennifer does research on teacher learning in high-poverty settings, and is influenced by teacher education methods in Japan. In addition, Jenny works on a number of professional development projects in Jewish education including for the Mandel Institute in Jerusalem.

Sharon Feiman-Nemser is the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Professor of Jewish Education at Brandeis University and the founding director of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education. A well-known scholar of teacher education and learning to teach, she also led innovative teacher education programs at the University of Chicago and Michigan State University before moving to Boston. Sharon has served on the faculty of MTEI since its beginning. At Brandeis, she teaches in the Education Program and the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Dept. Sharon founded the DeLeT program which prepares teachers for Jewish day school and a fellowship program for day school teacher leaders. Her book, Teachers as Learners (2012), deals with many themes related to MTEI.

Sivan Zakai is the Sara S. Lee Associate Professor of Jewish Education at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She also serves as the Director of the Children’s Learning about Israel Project of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University, and as co-director of Project ORLIE: Research and Leadership in Israel Education. Author of My Second-Favorite Country: How American Jewish Children Think about Israel (2022) and senior co-editor of the Journal of Jewish Education, her research focuses on the teaching and learning of Jewish history, Israel, and controversial issues in Jewish education.

Mindy Gold is the Founder and Lead Consultant of Gold Learning Solutions. Her work and research focus on educational leadership, professional learning, and participatory research methodologies. Before joining the MTEI faculty, Mindy led the MTEI Graduate Program, where she expanded the programmatic offerings, increased graduate participation, and collaborated with graduates to create robust online and in-person learning spaces. She is a Coach for the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership and serves on the board of the Network for Research in Jewish Education. In 2021-2022, Mindy was the Scholar-in-Residence for the Bonnie Tennenbaum Digital Learning Initiative at Jewish LearningWorks. As well as being a graduate of MTEI’s Cohort 7, Mindy holds a Masters in Teaching from National Louis University (Chicago, IL), a Certificate in Jewish Education from The University of Cincinnati, and is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Education at the University of Louisville.

Heather Gerker is the MTEI Graduate Assistant and a current doctoral student at the University of Cincinnati where she is studying educational policy. She holds a B.F.A. in Electronic Media and an M. Ed. in early childhood education with a concentration in Montessori pedagogy. Heather has taught in a variety of educational settings, including in teacher education, preschool, kindergarten, and Montessori early childhood classrooms. Passionate about organizing, facilitating learning, and connecting with communities, Heather seeks to understand the role of collective impact in shifting education policy. Her current scholarship focuses on a critical analysis of the relationship between educational policy and practice with emphasis on progressive pedagogies in public schools.

Robin Kahn (Cohort 6) became the Graduate Network Leader for MTEI in 2023. Since graduating from the MTEI program, MTEI’s principles have been at the core of her work. Robin also works at Hebrew College in Newton, MA, on the Adult Learning and Professional Development Teams and is the Director of the Undergraduate Teaching Fellows Program at Brandeis University’s Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education. In this role, she mentors and teaches undergraduates teaching in Jewish supplemental schools. Previously Robin spent over 25 years working in part-time Jewish education and held leadership roles in the Boston and Philadelphia areas. She has spent summers as a senior educator at Ramah Sports Academy, working with campers, counselors, and coaches to reinforce Jewish values on the field and court. Robin earned a BA and MA from Brandeis University in Modern Jewish History and an EdM from Harvard University in Learning and Teaching. Robin lives in the Boston area and serves on the National Kidney Foundation’s Advocacy Committees.

Allison JoAnn Lester is the MTEI Graduate Assistant and a current doctoral student at the University of Cincinnati where she is studying educational and community-based action research, performative ethnography and storytelling, and innovative educational technology (virtual reality and participatory photography). She holds a B.A. in Political Science and an M.A. in Educational Studies with a concentration in teacher action research. Allison has taught in a variety of educational settings, including teacher education, special education, early childhood, and ESL classrooms in Migdal HaEmek, Israel. Committed to tikkun olam, Allison seeks to foster supportive and reflective learning communities for educational equity and social change. Her current scholarship focuses on the development of new frameworks for understanding participatory program evaluation and development with an emphasis on theory, research, and practice integrations.

Deborah Niederman, RJE has been working in Jewish education since 1989. She has worked in four different congregations as Director of Education and served as the Associate Director of the Leadership Institute for the Union for Reform Judaism and Coordinator of Career Services and Alumni Relations for the Schools of Education at HUC-JIR. She holds a BA in Judaic Studies and Psychology from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. and a Masters in Jewish Education from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. In 1995 she received the title Reform Jewish Educator and in 2018 an honorary doctorate in religious education. She loves to lead change and bring innovation to all the organizations in which she works.