Rebecca Friedman is the project founding director of the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab and Professor of History at Florida International University (FIU) and did her PhD at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is an expert in the cultural and gender history of modern Russia and the Soviet Union and is author of the first English-language monograph on Russian masculinity. Her recent book, Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality: Time at Home, explores modern time and home in twentieth century Russia (Bloomsbury 2020).
Much of her work currently involves public humanities and community engagement, especially highlighting the cultural and intellectual spirit of the greater Miami region. She is the principal investigator (PI) or co-PI on over $5 million worth of grants funding in public humanities. She is also the co-director of iWitness at the Institute of Visual Journalism under the International Center of Photography at FIU.