Dr. Carolyn Ross Johnston is the Elie Wiesel Professor of Humane Letters at Eckerd College. She taught twenty-four different Winter Term courses with Elie Wiesel from 1993-2016. She is a Professor of History, American Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies. She has served on the Readers Committee for the Elie Wiesel Foundation’s Ethics Prize for over thirty years. She received her B.A. from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and her PhD in History from the University of California at Berkeley. Professor Johnston has taught for forty-eight years at Eckerd College and previously taught at two years at Colorado College. She has written six books on subjects ranging from Jack London, Women’s History, American Indian history, and African American history during World War II.

Elisha Wiesel (born June 6, 1972) is an American businessman, hedge fund manager, social activist, and philanthropist. He is the only child of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

Wiesel spent 25 years at Goldman Sachs, where he held various leadership roles before leaving in 2019. He is a Founding Partner and Chief Risk Officer of ClearAlpha Technologies, where he co-manages the Niche Plus fund. He also serves as Chairman of Entrio, an Israeli financial technology start-up, and is a member of the board of directors of FactSet, a global financial digital platform and enterprise solution provider dual-listed on NYSE and NASDAQ.

He is the Chairman of The Elie Wiesel Foundation, where he is leading efforts to revitalize the Foundation’s mission and further his parents’ legacies as humanitarians and educators. Elisha also continues his father’s commitment to the Jewish people by speaking publicly against antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric.

Wiesel’s father, Elie Wiesel, was a Holocaust survivor, author, professor, and human rights advocate who founded The Elie Wiesel Foundation with his wife, Marion Wiesel, also a Holocaust survivor.

Raised in New York City, Elisha attended the Ramaz School, a Modern Orthodox yeshiva, and later Yale University, where he earned a B.S. in Computer Science. Following graduation, he received basic military training in Israel. He has two children with his wife, Lynn Bartner-Wiesel.

Speaker information coming soon.

Mike Igel is the grandson of three Holocaust Survivors. He is the Chair of The Florida Holocaust Museum’s Elie Wiesel Archive & Legacy Council. He previously served as Board Chair, then Interim CEO & Board Chair Emeritus at The Museum and has served on its Board since 2014. Mike oversees The Museum’s Wiesel Collection of artifacts, writings, and personal effects, which the Elie Wiesel Foundation granted to the institution in 2023. Mike is committed to honoring Professor Wiesel’s legacy through impactful Holocaust education and the fight against contemporary antisemitism.

In 2021, Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran appointed Mike as Chairman of the Commissioner’s Task Force on Holocaust Education, in which capacity he advises the Florida Department of Education on Holocaust issues and guides Holocaust curricula across the state. Mike is a Partner at law firm Johnson Pope LLP in St. Petersburg, where he Chairs its Health Care Team and represents physician groups, hospitals, health systems, and other health care companies in a variety of transactional, regulatory, compliance, and healthcare business matters.

Elisha Wiesel (born June 6, 1972) is an American businessman, hedge fund manager, social activist, and philanthropist. He is the only child of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

Wiesel spent 25 years at Goldman Sachs, where he held various leadership roles before leaving in 2019. He is a Founding Partner and Chief Risk Officer of ClearAlpha Technologies, where he co-manages the Niche Plus fund. He also serves as Chairman of Entrio, an Israeli financial technology start-up, and is a member of the board of directors of FactSet, a global financial digital platform and enterprise solution provider dual-listed on NYSE and NASDAQ.

He is the Chairman of The Elie Wiesel Foundation, where he is leading efforts to revitalize the Foundation’s mission and further his parents’ legacies as humanitarians and educators. Elisha also continues his father’s commitment to the Jewish people by speaking publicly against antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric.

Wiesel’s father, Elie Wiesel, was a Holocaust survivor, author, professor, and human rights advocate who founded The Elie Wiesel Foundation with his wife, Marion Wiesel, also a Holocaust survivor.

Raised in New York City, Elisha attended the Ramaz School, a Modern Orthodox yeshiva, and later Yale University, where he earned a B.S. in Computer Science. Following graduation, he received basic military training in Israel. He has two children with his wife, Lynn Bartner-Wiesel.

Mike Igel is the grandson of three Holocaust Survivors. He is the Chair of The Florida Holocaust Museum’s Elie Wiesel Archive & Legacy Council. He previously served as Board Chair, then Interim CEO & Board Chair Emeritus at The Museum and has served on its Board since 2014. Mike oversees The Museum’s Wiesel Collection of artifacts, writings, and personal effects, which the Elie Wiesel Foundation granted to the institution in 2023. Mike is committed to honoring Professor Wiesel’s legacy through impactful Holocaust education and the fight against contemporary antisemitism.

In 2021, Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran appointed Mike as Chairman of the Commissioner’s Task Force on Holocaust Education, in which capacity he advises the Florida Department of Education on Holocaust issues and guides Holocaust curricula across the state. Mike is a Partner at law firm Johnson Pope LLP in St. Petersburg, where he Chairs its Health Care Team and represents physician groups, hospitals, health systems, and other health care companies in a variety of transactional, regulatory, compliance, and healthcare business matters.

A close student of Prof. Wiesel’s for almost 40 years, Dr. Avraham (Alan) Rosen is also a scholar of his life and teachings, including editor of five books; project scholar and curator of the 92NY Elie Wiesel Living Archive; and Senior Advisor, Archives and Legacy at the Elie Wiesel Foundation. He is the author or editor of many books on Holocaust literature, testimony, and Jewish religious response, including The Holocaust’s Jewish Calendars: Keeping Time Sacred, Making Time Holy, which was awarded the 2020 Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. He has taught at universities, seminaries and yeshivas in Israel and the United States, and has lectured regularly at Holocaust study centers throughout the world. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he lives in Jerusalem with his wife, children, and grandchildren.

Speaker information coming soon.

Rabbi Dr. Ariel Burger is an author, teacher, and artist whose work integrates spirituality, storytelling, and strategies for social change. His meeting, at age 15, with Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel set him on a path of spiritual searching, immersive study, and activism. Ariel is the author of Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom, and is the Founder and Senior Scholar of The Witness Institute, whose mission is to empower emerging moral leaders. Ariel’s work, which catalyzes new experimental approaches to moral education and leadership, has been applied by learners, educators, and institutions around the world.

After studying poetry and Holocaust testimony at Eckerd College, Ross Cohen joined Teach for America at the Texas-Mexico border. There, he kindled his joy of teaching and of encouraging students in discovering their authentic voices in order to tell their stories. Since 2013, Ross has taught high school English at Columbia Heights Educational Campus in Northwest Washington, DC. He lives with his wife, Priyanka, and their daughter, Meru.

Ross writes, “I teach at a Title I school in Washington, DC. A third of my students are African American. Two-thirds are Latinx, and many of them are immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. While many of my students get along well within their demographics, there is little interaction across cultural and linguistic divides. I believe in the power of story to close the gaps between groups. I hope that in sharing and celebrating the differences within our diverse student community, our students’ views of ‘The Others’ in their classes will broaden, as mine have as their teacher.”

Dr. Joseph Haley is a teacher, scholar, and writer based in Washington, DC. He is currently the Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow at the World Justice Project, where he oversees a narrative research and reporting program aimed at promulgating effective practices for advancing the rule of law. He holds a B.A. in literature and creative writing from Eckerd College and a PhD in English from the Johns Hopkins University.

During his undergraduate studies, Joe had the tremendous privilege to read great books and explore foundational questions with Professor Wiesel – an experience that helped liberate him from the vestigial extremism of his childhood and cemented a lifelong passion for humane teaching, authentic dialogue, and the universal quest for justice.

Before enlarging his focus to include public policy, he spent more than a decade teaching literature and writing at the secondary and postsecondary level; in addition to teaching in the United States, he was a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Malaysia and a science instructor for talented youth in Saudi Arabia. He cares deeply about education as a vehicle for interfaith dialogue and women’s empowerment; during his free time, he serves on the executive board of a nonprofit that provides high quality journalism training to underserved girls in Nepal. He also enjoys creating poetry, making music, hosting friends, and walking with nature.

Kasim is a Uyghur journalist and founding executive director of Uyghur Monitor, a trilingual nonprofit newsroom for independent coverage of Uyghur communities. He previously served as Voice of America’s first dedicated Uyghur reporter, publishing over 300 stories in English and Mandarin. A Kiplinger Fellow (2025), he is the author of a forthcoming witness memoir about Uyghur life in China and exile. Before fleeing China in 2017, he founded Atlan Language Training Center in Ürümqi, which served over 100,000 students.

“The world urgently needs both education and truth-telling. My work lies at their intersection: creating platforms for exiled Uyghurs through Atlan Academy, reporting at Voice of America, and now building Uyghur Monitor to document truth and amplify silenced voices. Education without truth is hollow; truth without education is fragile. In a time when authoritarianism thrives on lies and erasure, I believe leadership must live at this intersection.”

Anna Kohler Smith lives in Iquitos, Peru, and works collectively with Amazonian communities to recover their cultural heritage. She also connects Western partners with essential local projects looking for support. She is a writer, creative, entrepreneur, and public health practitioner.

“My passion lies in the liminal space between culture, language, and perception. I learn not because I know but because I choose to enter the conversation over and over again. I can actively let the narrative of the other enter and take center stage. It’s enormously challenging to quiet oneself enough to do that. It’s very enriching work that I’m both honored and challenged to be able to do.”

Juliana Taimoorazy is a leading international advocate, speaker and writer advancing awareness of persecution of Christians in the Middle East. In 2007, Juliana founded the Iraqi Christian Relief Council to shine a light on the plight of Christians in her ancestral homeland. Her own unique story as a refugee has made her a strong leader and an unshakable voice for Christians in the Middle East today. Taimoorazy has advised many U.S. based organizations and institutions on the issue of persecuted Christians in the Middle East, has been consulted on developing policy, has authored many articles and continues to speak globally to raise awareness on these important issues. Through her activism, speaking engagements and regular media appearances, both in the U.S. and internationally, Juliana has tirelessly shared her personal story and promoted the cause of Iraqi Christians throughout the world.

For her tireless service to humanity, Taimoorazy was nominated for the prestigious NansenAward through the United Nations Higher Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). She has received multiple awards; Assyrian Woman of the Year, Michelle Malkin Investigates “Bulldog Award”, Advocacy of the Year award, just to name a few. Juliana is a UN Delegate in Geneva, and she is a member of the Simon Wiesenthal Midwest Region’s Community Engagement Committee.

Deborah Turcott is a long-time executive leader in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Today, she is the CEO of her own national strategy consulting firm, ORIANA solutions, where she leads a dynamic team as they shape company, organization, and leader plans and paths toward significance. When not diving deep into meaningful work for clients, Deb travels the country speaking to business and community leaders about creating change, navigating conflict, intentional leadership, and human and guest experience. Deb and her team have held a long and impactful partnership with The Florida Holocaust Museum, including their current work together in visioning “The Wiesel Experience” with the aim of bringing Elie and Marion Wiesel’s lessons to the world through interactive and personal journey exhibition and media design.