"The Holocaust: Lessons of the Past for the Sake of the Future"
Professional Background
Dr. Olena Ivanova received a Ph.D. in psychology from Kyiv National University in Ukraine. During her tenure at the Museum, she was Chair of the Psychology Department at Kharkiv National University in Ukraine. The Museum hosted Dr. Ivanova for her Fulbright Fellowship, for which she conducted research on “The Holocaust: Lessons of the Past for the Sake of the Future.”
Dr. Ivanova is the author of several books in Russian and English about the methods of memory, the psychology of cognition and memory, the history of psychology, and the intersection of gender and psychology studies. Her expertise is the psychological processes of historical memory, and particularly individual and collective memory of WWII in Ukraine. She has lectured widely at international conferences in Europe, the United Sates, and South America. Dr. Ivanova is the recipient of several prestigious awards for her work from institutions such as the MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Spencer Foundation, the Fulbright Program, and the National Endowment for Democracy. For her 1998-1999 Fulbright research grant, she collaborated with faculty in the Department of Education at Washington University in St. Louis where she worked on historical memory and human rights understanding among youth. This project coalesced into her work on Holocaust education.
Fellowship Research
During her tenure at the Museum, Dr. Ivanova compared the large body of material she collected on Holocaust awareness in Ukraine with knowledge of the Holocaust in America. She explored the production and consumption of Holocaust-related materials and in a novel way contributed the analytical tools of psychology and discourse/narrative analysis to the subject matter. She concentrated on the development of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and its impact on American Holocaust awareness and education. She also studied the additional forms of Holocaust representation and memory found in books and films. She utilized the Museum’s institutional archives and studied its educational programs to complete her research.
Dr. Ivanova was in residence at the Mandel Center from August 26, 2002 to April 20, 2003.