Dr. Flora Cassen is associate professor of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies, and History at Washington University in St. Louis with research interests in the social life of Jews in Renaissance Italy, European Jewish History and Culture, Jewish identity, and Antisemitism. In 2017, Flora volunteered to serve on the ad-hoc AJS Sexual Misconduct Task Force. In 2019 she joined the AJS Office on Sexual Misconduct as an Ombud.

Dr. Marjorie Lehman is professor and department chair of Rabbinic Literatures and Cultures at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She teaches and does research on gender in rabbinic literature. Most recently she published, Bringing Down the Temple House: Engendering Tractate Yoma (Brandies University Press, 2022), which is a feminist project that explores the rabbis’ relationship to the Temple-house as it intersects with the everyday household in Bavli Yoma. In spring 2021 she taught an undergraduate course, “Sexual Citizens.” With a focus on matters of sexuality (including what the rabbis have to say about sexual assault), the goal was to explore the ways that Talmudic texts provoke needed discussions around matters of gender and sexuality.

Rabbi Dr. William Plevan writes on modern Jewish thought, theology, and ethics and teaches at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Gratz College, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He currently serves on the board of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights and has served as president of Matan, an organization devoted to promoting special needs Jewish education.

Dr. Rabbi Micha'el Rosenberg is a faculty member at the Hadar Institute. Micha'el previously served as associate professor of Rabbinics at Hebrew College and as rabbi of the Fort Tryon Jewish Center in Washington Heights. He is the author of Signs of Virginity: Testing Virgins and Making Men in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2018), and with Rabbi Ethan Tucker, he is coauthor of Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law (Ktav, 2017).

Dr. Ashley Valanzola is assistant professor of the Holocaust at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, TN. She received her BS in History from the U.S. Naval Academy, her MA in Diplomacy from Norwich University, and her PhD in History from the George Washington University. A specialist in modern European history and Holocaust Studies, her book manuscript, Prevail: Jewish Women and the Preservation of Holocaust Memory in France, examines the role of individual women in shaping the production of Holocaust memory from 1945 to the present day. She has received grants from the Chateaubriand Fellowship in Humanities and Social Sciences provided through the French Embassy as well as the Washington D.C. Cosmos Club Foundation. During her time in the Navy and after, she served as a sexual assault victim advocate and an educator for sexual assault prevention initiatives.

Dr. Rabbi Mira Beth Wasserman is director of the Center for Jewish Ethics and assistant professor of Rabbinic Literature at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Connecting her academic research and social justice work, Mira draws on Rabbinic literature—the Talmud in particular—as a model for contemporary ethical deliberation. Her teaching responsibilities include training rabbis and rabbinic students in professional ethics and abuse prevention. She is coeditor of the forthcoming Respect and Responsibility: A Jewish Ethics Study Guide deploying Jewish values and text study in the prevention of abuse. In 2019 she joined the AJS Office on Sexual Misconduct as an Ombud.

Dr. Lisa Fishbayn Joffe is lecturer in Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies and affiliated faculty in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. She is also the Shulamit Reinharz Director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, a research institute on Jews and gender, where she directs the Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law. Her research and teaching explores feminist theory, legal theory, and women's rights at the intersection of civil and religious law. She holds law degrees from Osgoode Hall Law School and Harvard Law School. In 2017, Lisa volunteered to serve on the ad-hoc AJS Sexual Misconduct Task Force where she was instrumental in developing the AJS procedures for handling complaints of sexual misconduct. In 2019, Lisa became the secretary of the new Office on Sexual Misconduct (OSM) which oversees the design and operation of the AJS sexual misconduct policy and procedures. In 2023 she became the president of the OSM.

Dr. Laura Levitt is professor of Religion, Jewish Studies and Gender at Temple University where she has chaired the Department of Religion and the Jewish Studies Program. She has directed Temple University’s Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies program, is the former coordinator of the Greater Philadelphia Women’s Studies Consortium, and has written about sexual assault and traumatic memory. Laura has served on the AJS Board of Directors, and in 2018 was appointed chair of the ad-hoc AJS Sexual Misconduct Task Force. Under her leadership, the Task Force developed procedures for handling complaints of sexual misconduct in AJS sponsored programs and activities. In 2019, Laura became the chair of the new Office on Sexual Misconduct which oversees the design and operation of the AJS sexual misconduct policy and procedures. In 2023 she became the secretary of the OSM.