DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Interests

Geographic Field(s):  Modern European History: Central/Eastern Europe

Thematic Field(s):  Gender and Sexuality History

Principal Research Interest(s):  Holocaust History

Biography

Cushman has been director of HEFNU since Fall 2016. Before coming to Northwestern, Cushman served as Head of Educational Programming at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark (2013-1016). Prior to that, she served as Director of Youth Education at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County (Long Island, NY; 2007-2013). While there, she completed her doctoral dissertation, The Women of Birkenau (Clark University, 2010), a social history of the women’s camp in Auschwitz. Her current book project, Women in Auschwitz, is under contract with Indiana University Press and is based on her dissertation. She is co-editing, with Joanne Pettitte and Dominic Williams, The Routledge Handbook of Auschwitz-Birkenau (2025). She is co-editor in chief of Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History. Her research and writing have been supported by fellowships from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Holocaust Educational Foundation, Steven Spielberg, and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. Her research and teaching interests center on Holocaust history, the concentration camp system, and gender and sexuality.