Meet Our Archives Team
The Program in Jewish Studies works in conjuction with the CU University Libraries and a team of archivists to preserve and provide access to the Innovations in Jewish Life Collections.
David Shneer z"l
Founding Director of the Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collection (now Innovations in Jewish Life)
David Shneer z"l was the Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History, Professor of History and Jewish Studies, and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He was a Distinguished Lecturer for the Association for Jewish Studies, was the faculty director for Yiddishkayt, was the co-editor in chief of East European Jewish Affairs, and was the inaugural faculty director of CU Boulder's Post Holocaust American Judaism archive until 2015.
Samira K. Mehta
Academic Director of the Archive
Samira K. Mehta is the Director of Jewish Studies and an Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research and teaching focus on the intersections religion, culture, and gender, including the politics of family life and reproduction in the United States. Her first book, Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2018) was a National Jewish book award finalist. She is also the author of a newly released book of personal essays called The Racism of People Who Love You (Beacon Press, 2023). Mehta’s current academic book project, God Bless the Pill: Sexuality and Contraception in Tri-Faith America examines the role of Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant voices in competing moral logics of contraception, population control, and eugenics from the mid-twentieth century to the present and is under contract with the University of North Carolina Press. She is also beginning a project for Princeton University Press called A Mixed Multitude: Jews of Color in the United States. Mehta is the primary investigator for a Henry Luce Foundation funded project called Jews of Color: Histories and Futures. She is a member of the board of Feminist Studies in Religion, where she serves as the co-editor of the blog; co-chairs the steering committee of the North American Religions Program Unit at the American Academy of Religion; and is a Creative Editor at the journal American Religion. She holds degrees from Swarthmore College, Harvard University, and Emory University.
Megan K. Friedel
Head of Archives
Megan K. Friedel is Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, where she serves as Lead Archivist and Head of Collections Management and Stewardship for the Libraries’ Rare and Distinctive Collections (RaD). In this role, she manages the Libraries’ Archives, including stewardship of and access to the Innovations in Jewish Life collections. She is also a co-PI, with Samira Mehta, for the “Jews of Color: Histories and Futures” project. Friedel’s research focuses on the intersection of social justice and archives management praxis, with a specific focus on the reparative work of archivists to document histories of marginalized communities that have traditionally been excluded from the historical record. She is a member of the Society of Rocky Mountain Archivist governing board and is an Editorial Board member of the Journal of Western Archives.