Meet the Graduate Students Zach Bleemer / Graduate Research Fellow / Spring 2016 Zach Bleemer is a data scientist and microeconomist studying aesthetics and young person decision-making at UC Berkeley, where he is a doctoral student in economics. His research examines popular latent aesthetic categories and beliefs since 1600 across Europe and the United States. At The Magnes, Zach is leading a team of undergraduate students, in digitizing and textually organizing 30 different editions of the Passover Haggadah from the collection, published in the United States between 1840 and 2015. Alan Elbaum / Graduate Research Fellow / Spring 2016 Alan Elbaum is a first-year medical student at the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program. While at Berkeley, he is working toward a master’s degree in the history of medicine, using manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah. His project at The Magnes is based on the collection of Egyptian Karaite and Rabbanite manuscripts that were recently cataloged by Dr. Lisa Wurtele.
Shir Gal Kochavi / Curatorial Volunteer / Spring 2016 Shir Gal Kochavi is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, where she is focusing on Post-Holocaust restitution of Jewish cultural objects, and has been a curatorial volunteer at The Magnes for the past year. Born and raised in Israel, Shir has always had an interest in Jewish cultural history and art, specifically how art is treated during times of conflict.
Yosef Rosen / Graduate Research Fellow / Fall 2015- Spring 2016 Yosef Rosen is a doctoral candidate in Jewish Studies at UC Berkeley. Yosef’s dissertation offers a new take on the emergence of Kabbalah in Spain, as told through literary forgeries, epistles, courtroom chronicles, and literary transformations in rabbinic culture. He received an MA in Jewish Thought from Hebrew University and a BA in philosophy from Yeshiva University. While at The Magnes, Yosef researched the collection of Shiviti amulets.
Kelin Verrette / Graduate Student Intern / Spring 2016 Kelin Verrette is a current graduate student at San Francisco State University, majoring in museum studies. Kelin began her internship with The Magnes in April 2016, and collaborates with Magnes Registrar Julie Franklin on collections care and management. In the future, she is interested in using and developing digital tools to keep museums relevant and accessible to modern audiences. 17