Professional Background
Meghan Riley holds a PhD and a master's degree in modern European history from Indiana University, as well as a bachelor's degree in history and English writing from the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Riley’s research examines the intersection of humanitarianism and the Holocaust and has been supported with several awards and fellowships, including a Fulbright Fellowship in France, a Saul Kagan Fellowship in Advanced Shoah Studies, and funding from the American Academy of Jewish Research and Indiana University. She also received the inaugural Richard E. Fertel Emerging Scholars Prize in Holocaust and Antisemitism Studies and was a participant in the Global Humanitarianism Research Academy and the Auschwitz Jewish Studies Fellows Program. Most recently, she served as the 2025-2026 postdoctoral fellow at Northern Arizona University’s Martin-Springer Institute.
Fellowship Research
While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a William J. Lowenberg Memorial Fellow on America, the Holocaust, and the Jews, Meghan. Riley will conduct work on her book project, “A Sword Trembles Overhead: American Humanitarian Relief in the Concentration Camps of Unoccupied France, 1939-42.” Her project examines the activities of American relief workers in the internment camps of Vichy France, giving particular attention to the perspectives of the camp inmates served by these humanitarians. She will draw on the Museum’s extensive collection of American Friends Service Committee case files as well as materials from the non-American relief agencies with which the Americans worked. She will also use Museum resources to investigate the humanitarians’ role in facilitating Jewish emigration from the camps.
Residency Period: September 1, 2026 – April 30, 2027