Valerie S. Thaler is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Judaic studies program at Yale University, where she concentrates on twentieth-century American Jewish history. Her dissertation is entitled The Reshaping of American Jewish Identity, 1945–1960. She holds an M.A. in Jewish Studies and Jewish Communal Service/Education from Brandeis University, and a B.A. in American Studies from Yale. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., Thaler worked in educational programming in the Department of Jewish Education of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven.