Ellen Brooks (2012)

Ellen Brooks (she/her/her) is an oral history producer and consultant who currently works with WiLS (Wisconsin Library Systems) on the IMLS grant-funded Accelerating Promising Practices project, mentoring and supporting a cohort of practitioners as they take on oral history initiatives, community digitization events, and other projects to document and share their unique local stories.

Prior to her current role, Ellen worked as the Oral Historian for the State Archives of North Carolina (January 2019 - August 2020) and as the Oral Historian for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum (2013-2018).

Ellen found her way to oral history through a passion for storytelling and public history. She graduated from the Oral History Master of Arts program at Columbia University in 2013. Prior to OHMA, she received BAs in History and Communications from Fordham University and interned at multiple cultural institutions, including the Chicago History Museum, the Chicago Cultural Alliance, and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

Ellen is a founding member of the OHA Emerging Professionals Committee and holds a seat on the Columbia Oral History Alumni Association Board. She enjoys welcoming new voices into the oral history space - both practitioners and narrators. Ellen’s principle interests include archival practices, podcasting, digital humanities and the intersection of all these with oral history. 

Molly Rosner (2008)

Molly Rosner came to OHMA from Wesleyan University where she majored in American Studies and studied housing in New York City. After graduating from OHMA she interned with the Apollo Theater Oral History Project, and worked as a researcher for BLDG92, the historical institute at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She then worked as an educator at the Brooklyn Museum, using oral history and storytelling to explore the art and history of the city. She has also worked at The American Legacy Foundation, an anti-tobacco organization, to institute their archive. Molly maintains a blog "Brooklyn In Love and At War" which features and analyzes letters written during WWII. Some of the letters are now on display at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where she plans to host a public program in the coming year. She is currently a doctoral student in American Studies at Rutgers University-Newark. She works with Lyra Monteiro on The Museum On Site, creating site-specific interactive public historical exhibits. She studies cities and suburbs using media and children's literature.

Liza Zapol (2010)

Liza Zapol is an educator, oral historian, and screenwriter. Liza is the Director of the Pedagogy of Listening Lab at Columbia University. She teaches oral history at Columbia University with Nicki Pombier, and taught at Yale’s Public Humanities Program and The New School. Liza was a teaching artist for several years in the New York City Public School System. 

Zapol has been honored to interview over 100 artists and cultural workers. Zapol was Secretarial Scholar at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art where she focused on creating oral history projects of underrepresented artists, specifically Latinx artists, Black women artists, and Native American women artists. She has created oral history projects for the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and Massachusetts General Hospital, and many other organizations.

Liza is in development with two feature films she wrote with Annette Leddy about groundbreaking women artists. 

Liza earned a certificate in Physical Theatre from the London International School of Performing Arts, and a certificate from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she was also a dramatic librarian. B.A. with Honors from Northwestern University. M.A. in Oral History at Columbia University.