About Me

My name is Chad Gibbs and I am an Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Director of the Zucker/Goldberg Center for Holocaust Studies at the College of Charleston. My research has been supported by a research fellowship at Yad Vashem, the Fred and Maria Devinki Memorial Fellowship from the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Breslauer, Rutman, and Anderson Research Fellowship with the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, and the Dori Laub Fellowship from the Yale University Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. From July 2019 to March 2020, I was resident in Jerusalem as a George L. Mosse Graduate Exchange Fellow to the Hebrew University. I received my PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2021, my MA in history from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2016, and my BA in history at the University of Wyoming (PBK, scl) in 2013. 

My teaching and research interests focus in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, modern European Jewish history, and modern Germany.  My current work applies geographic and social network analysis methodologies to extensive testimonial sources to reconstruct prisoner resistance inside the extermination camp Treblinka II. 

I am devoted to oral history research and practice, serving as an interviewer for the USC Shoah Foundation’s work with Holocaust survivors and as an Affiliated Researcher with the USC-Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research. In my teaching I regularly use interviews as sources and teach students how to conduct oral histories in a recurring course centered on the lives of Holocaust survivor descendants.

In Spring 2024, I taught JWST 201/HIST 250: “A History of Lies” about antisemitic ideas, and JWST 404: “Holocaust Legacies and Oral History.” During the Fall 2024 term, I will teach my core JWST 230/HIST 241: “The Holocaust” course. In the summer 2025 Maymester term, I will help lead our JWST 300 “European Jewish Life and the Holocaust” study abroad program in Germany, Poland, and Lithuania.

I served in the U.S. Army before my academic career, attaining the rank of Sergeant/E-5.  In 2006, I was wounded in Iraq and honorably medically retired from the service in 2009.