Shana Penn, is executive director of Taube Philanthropies and a visiting scholar at the Graduate Theological Union’s Center for Jewish Studies, Berkeley and author of the award-winning book, Solidarity’s Secret: The Women Who Defeated Communism in Poland. She has a Master’s degree in European Studies from Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Other books include Gender Politics and Everyday Life in Central and Eastern Europe, co-edited with Jill Massino, along with chapters in Beacon Book of Essays by Contemporary American Women Writers, and the Routledge Handbook of Women in Central and Eastern Europe.