Sandra Alfers, PhD

she//sie, Professor of German, German Section Head, Founding Director of the Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity

About

Dr. Sandra Alfers (she//sie) is Professor of German and German Section Head in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (LLC) and the Founding Director of The Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity (RWI) at Western Washington University. From September 2016 to June 2025, she served as the institute's executive director, developing the RWI as a recognized national and international partner for Holocaust & Genocide education. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and joined Western in 2008 after living and teaching on the East Coast (including Dartmouth College, Mount Holyoke College, and Dickinson College). In 2013, the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) designated Western’s German program a “National Center of Excellence.” A past recipient of an AATG/German government "TrainDaF" scholarship, Dr. Alfers has served the organization in diverse leadership positions on the regional level (e.g. Central PA Testing Chair). In addition, she has organized panels and designed/led workshops for K-12 educators and university faculty at regional and national conferences, also in her capacity as "Netzwerktrainerin" for the Goethe-Institut San Francisco. During her sabbatical in 2022, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany.

Dr. Alfers teaches a broad range of German language, culture, and literature courses on all levels of the curriculum. She has explored the uses of new technologies in the L2 classroom, developing a German mobile application as well as an online textbook for her third-year literature class. During the current academic year, she is a Western Libraries Writing, Research, and AI Faculty Fellow, exploring the opportunities, challenges, and limits of AI in language learning. In her research, Dr. Alfers focuses on the literature of the Holocaust, particularly on German-language poetry written in Theresienstadt between 1941-1945. Her English- and German-language publications have appeared in international journals such as Monatshefte, Oxford German Studies, and Études Arméniennes Contemporaines, and her work on Theresienstadt has been translated into Czech for Terezínské Studie A Dokumenty. Her latest book Traces of Memory: The Life and Work of Else Dormitzer (1877-1958) appeared in June 2024 in Michael Berenbaum's special series "The Holocaust: History and Literature, Ethics and Philosophy" with Academic Studies Press. In 2015, Hentrich & Hentrich (Leipzig, Germany) published weiter schreiben. Leben und Lyrik der Else Dormitzer, which led to a rediscovery of Else Dormitzer in her hometown of Nuremberg, Germany. Currently, she is working on a contribution for the Cambridge History of Holocaust Literature, an international, multi-year research project led by Erin McGlothlin (Washington University St. Louis) and Stuart Taberner (University of Leeds). The project, which includes a public engagement program, is supported by a grant from the UK Arts and Humanity Council. 

Under her leadership, WWU established the The Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity in 2016 and became the first public university in the state of Washington to offer a minor in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. In honor of local Holocaust survivor Noémi Ban, she initiated the institute's quarterly online lecture series that showcases new research in the field. In 2024, the WA state legislature awarded the RWI $100,000 for curriculum development and teacher training in Holocaust and Genocide Education in partnership with the OSPI (Office of Superintendent for Public Instruction).  Dr. Alfers was a member of the academic council of the Holocaust Educational Foundation at Northwestern University from 2015-2019, co-organizing and hosting the Foundation's regional institutes in Bellingham in 2019 and 2024. As conference co-chair with Benjamin Frommer (History, Northwestern University), she is a member of the organizing committee for the international "Lessons &  Legacies Conference," the most distinguished conference in Holocaust Studies in the US, in November 2026. Until fall 2025, she served on the executive committee of the Consortium of Higher Education Centers for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Studies, the primary assembly and professional organization of center directors committed to securing, integrating, and advancing Holocaust, genocide, and human rights education on U.S. college campuses. In 2018, Dr. Alfers was named a recipient of the Rep. Timm Ormbsy Award for Faculty Citizenship, an award created to encourage, recognize, and honor exemplary civic engagement by faculty from each of the six public baccalaureates in Washington state. 

Research Interests: German Studies, Deutsch als Fremdsprache (DAF), AI in Language Learning, Holocaust Studies, Holocaust Education

Selected Publications

  • Monograph: Traces of Memory. The Life and Work of Else Dormitzer (1877-1945). Poetry and testimonial accounts translated by Cornelius Partsch. Brookline, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2024.
  • Monograph: weiter schreiben. Leben und Lyrik der Else Dormitzer. Berlin: Hentrich & Hentrich, 2015.
  • Collection of select articles available on Western CEDAR
  • Video collection of public events hosted by WWU/RWI available on Western CEDAR