Laura Newman Eckstein

Laura Newman Eckstein is the Arnold and Deanne Kaplan Curator of Judaica Digital Humanities at Penn Libraries. Laura is also currently a PhD candidate in the Penn history department. Her studies focus on the Jewish press in the mid-nineteenth century United States with specific interests in business history, material culture, and digital humanities methodologies. In her role at Penn Libraries, Eckstein has led a range of Judaica Digital Humanities initiatives. She received a grant from Zooniverse for Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, a groundbreaking crowdsourcing project to sort and and transcribe fragments from the Cairo Geniza. She has created and curated numerous digital projects at Penn and with partner institutions with a goal of broadening public access to Jewish cultural heritage.