Board of Directors and Staff
Roxanne Makasdjian, President, board member, and Executive Director, has a Master’s degree in Journalism from University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from University of California, Los Angeles. She worked as a national television news producer for more than 20 years, and is currently the Director of Broadcast Communications at UC Berkeley. As a founder of The Genocide Education Project, Ms. Makasdjian oversees the creation of lesson plans, external communications, planning of teacher training workshops, including the GenEd Teacher Fellowship Program in Armenia. She has also been instrumental in developing working partnerships with national, state and local educational institutions.
Dr. Dikran Kaligian teaches history at Worcester State and previously taught at Clark University and Regis, Westfield State, and Wheaton colleges. He is past chairperson of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Eastern Region and Managing Editor of the Armenian Review. He received his Ph. D. in history from Boston College. His book, “Armenian Organization and Ideology under Ottoman Rule, 1908-1914” was published in 2009 by Transaction Publishing.
Dr. Gohar Momjian is Vice President of the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges. She holds a B.A. in Psychology with a specialization in Business Administration from UCLA, an M.A. in International Education, Administration and Policy Analysis from Stanford University, and an Ed.D. in Organizational Change and Leadership from USC. She has volunteered for several Armenian nonprofit organizations and educational institutions over the last 25 years, including the Armenian Relief Society, Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of the Bay Area, and GenEd.
Seda Aghamianz serves as Administrator. She has a Master’s degree in International Relations from Boston University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Russian. Ms. Aghamianz has held several positions within the Armenian community, including Executive Director of the Armenian Relief Society, Eastern United States, and the Ani and Narod Memorial Fund. She has served on several non-profit boards as a volunteer member and currently serves as the head of the Allocations Committee of the Marshall Home Fund.
Advisory Board
Dr. Joyce Apsel
New York University
Master Teacher, General Studies Program
Yair Auron
Open University of Israel and Hakibbutzim
College of Education (Tel-Aviv, Israel)
Senior Lecturer
Dr. Peter Balakian
Colgate University
Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar
Chair in Humanities
Dr. Paul Bartrop
Deakin University (Victoria, Australia)
School of Social and International
Studies Research Fellow
Morgan Blum
Holocaust Center of Northern California
Education Director
Dr. Israel Charny
Institute on the Holocaust and
Genocide (Jerusalem, Israel)
Executive Director
Dr. Richard Hovannisian
University of California, Los Angeles
Professor, Armenian and Near Eastern History
Paul Krekorian
City of Los Angeles
Council member
Greg Krikorian
Glendale Unified School District
Member, Board of Education
Dr. Levon Marashlian
Glendale Community College
Professor of History
Dr. Simon Payaslian
Boston University
Chair, Modern Armenian History and Literature
Harut Sassounian
California Courier
Publisher
Adam Strom
Re-Imagining Migration
Director
Dr. Henry Theriault
Worcester State College
Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs
Dr. Nicole Vartanian
Columbia University
Executive Director, Weatherhead East Asian Institute
Jack Weinstein
Facing History and Ourselves
Director (Ret), San Francisco Bay Area