Nick Haberman
Founder, LIGHT Education Initiative; Social Studies Teacher, Pittsburgh, PA
2022, 2023, 2024, 2026
Nick (he/him) is a Pittsburgh-based educator and founder of the LIGHT Education Initiative. He currently works for the Allegheny Intermediate Unit as the inaugural Coordinator of Civic Engagement and Anti-Hate Education in partnership with the Tree of Life, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and the home of LIGHT. He spent the first 18 years of his career as a secondary social studies teacher. After being recognized as the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh’s “Educator of the Year” in 2018, he created LIGHT as a program to transform classroom-based Holocaust remembrance into student advocacy and action for all victims of identity-based violence, and to inspire, prepare, and empower the next generation of humanitarians. He has served as a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum “Museum Teacher Fellow” and a Jewish Foundation for the Righteous “Alfred Lerner Fellow” (Master Teacher of the Holocaust), in addition to being recognized as the Pennsylvania Council for the Social Studies “Outstanding Teacher of the Year” and “Righteous Among the Neighbors” by the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. He is also a member of the Eradicate Hate Global Summit K-12 Education Working Group, which coordinates the Eradicate Hate Student Summit.
This cannot be thought of as a conference or a summit. The stakes are simply too high and the data/conversation and methods to drive action more valuable/motivating than any gathering I have attended. I took more than 100 pages of notes and have shared them with my CBS News leadership team, anchors, producers, and correspondents. Nothing about this gathering was easy. The agony around this topic is real. But no one curious about it could ask for a more devoted, rational, or unflinching look into this dark but decipherable world.
