Deborah Yalen

Deborah Yalen is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Colorado State University (CSU), where she also serves as a member of the Advisory Council for Jewish Inclusion. Her research focuses on the social, political, and intellectual history of Jews in the Soviet Union during the 1920s-1930s, particularly state-sponsored documentation of shtetls in Ukraine and Belarus. She teaches courses on Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, the Holocaust, and modern Jewish history.

Education: PhD in History from the University of California-Berkeley (advisor unspecified), MA from Georgetown University, and BA from an unspecified institution. Professional affiliations include fellowships at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (University of Pennsylvania) and the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies (University of Michigan).

Research emphasizes Soviet ethnography's role in shaping Jewish identity, with a focus on scholars like Isaiah Pul'ner and the legacy of state-funded cultural projects. Recent work includes co-authoring a volume on Stalinist socialism's impact on Jewish communities (2017 NEH Fellowship) and developing CSU's 'Holocaust in Historical Perspective' course (2020).

Key awards include a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2017) and a Holocaust Educational Foundation grant (2016). Her publications explore intersections of Soviet ideology, Jewish cultural preservation, and gender dynamics in shtetl societies.

Teaching spans undergraduate and graduate levels, including capstone seminars on WWII and graduate reading courses on post-Napoleonic Europe. Professional service includes roles on CSU’s Presidential Task Force for Jewish Inclusion (2020-21) and contributions to digital projects like the YIVO Encyclopedia.