Dr. Pilnik is the director of the Emil A. and Jenny Fish Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center at Yeshiva University in New York City. Formerly, he was the executive director of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center in Milwaukee from 2014-2019. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, majoring in Comparative Literature and Jewish Thought; an MA in Jewish Studies from McGill University; and a doctoral degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary in Modern Jewish Studies, which he earned in 2013. His PhD dissertation dealt with the commemoration of the Babi Yar Massacre in Soviet Russian and Yiddish literature.