Dr. Robert M. Weinberg, Director
Rob Weinberg serves as the Director of the Experiment in Congregational Education (ECE), after serving in the program for seven years as organizational change consultant. He has developed many of the program’s critical guidelines and methods, and has frequently advised individual congregations. With a professional background in organizational culture and development, Rob now leads the ECE in a new phase using distance education technologies and Internet-based communication tools to accelerate and sustain the synagogue transformation process.

Prior to joining the ECE full time in Spring 2001, Rob was Principal of Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting firm. In addition to consulting with Fortune 500 corporations and the ECE, Rob has consulted to a wide range of other Jewish organizations, including: the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion; the Union of American Hebrew Congregations; The Central Conference of American Rabbis; the Reform Pension Board; the National Association of Temple Educators; the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education; and the Progressive Association of Reform Day Schools.

Rob earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Organization Behavior at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and B.A. from the University of Minnesota. He has served as an instructor and guest lecturer at the Kellogg School and has authored book chapters on Human Resource Measurement and Corporate Culture.

Amy Asin, Assistant Director
Amy Asin is Assistant Director of the Experiment in Congregational Education. She has responsibility for guiding the evolution of the model in which ECE operates, as it adds distance education technologies, Internet-based communications tools, and new forms of consultation. She has also been involved in planning our project in New York. Amy also serves as a consultant to one of the congregations in the San Francisco based pilot. As a lay leader of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, CA, from the first cohort of ECE congregations, she is a direct beneficiary of the work of the ECE.

Prior to joining the ECE national staff, Amy spent 15 years at Booz, Allen & Hamilton, a global business strategy and operations consulting firm, consulting in areas of strategic and organization transformation. She has also consulted to many Jewish community organizations and non-profits nationally and in the San Francisco area and has served on the Board of Directors of Jewish community organizations.

Amy earned her MBA with distinction from Harvard University and a B.A. in Economics with high honors from Princeton University. She also has completed Level One of the UAHC/HUC Pararabbinic Fellows program.

Dr. Isa Aron, Senior Advisor
Isa Aron served as Director of the ECE since the launch in 1992, and continues to serve as Senior Advisor, providing expertise in Jewish education innovations, program development and congregational change. Isa's recently published books, The Self-Renewing Congregation (Jewish Lights, 2002) and Becoming a Congregation of Learners (Jewish Lights, 2000), document how learning can become a pathway for congregational revitalization, using much of the experience of the 14 pioneering ECE congregations, and serve as a roadmap for congregations embarking on this journey.

Isa is Professor of Jewish Education at the Rhea Hirsch School of Education at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She is also senior editor of A Congregation of Learners: Transforming the Congregation into a Learning Community (UAHC Press, 1995) and author of numerous articles on Jewish Education published in such journals as American Journal of Education, Philosophy of Education, Religious Education, the Journal of Jewish Education, the Journal of Reform Judaism, the Melton Journal, Sh'ma and Tikkun.

Isa earned her Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Education from the University of Chicago. She also completed a Post-doctoral training program at the Center for the Study of Social Intervention at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and earned a B.A. in Philosophy at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

Gregg Alpert, National Director of Distance Learning, HUC-JIR
Gregg Alpert adds his expertise to the ECE’s senior staff as the chief designer of the ECE’s Internet-based environments and innovations. Gregg leads a talented team of educators, designers, and producers in creating Interactive CD-ROMs, Virtual Resource Centers, Team Intranets, continuing education, video-conference and audio-based courses, and enhancing existing educational opportunities and resources. The Distance Learning Department has developed a reputation for innovative and thoughtful approaches to the e-learning challenges posed by projects of the College-Institute and the wider Jewish community with a particular emphasis on the depth and quality of the user experience.

Gregg brings an extensive background in educational technology and Jewish education. Prior to joining HUC-JIR, he created numerous multimedia and computer-based educational productions for a wide range of organizations including the Skirball Cultural Center, the Museum of American Jewish History, the National Council of Jewish Women, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He also served as a Jewish curriculum designer and faculty member of Milken Community High School.

Gregg earned Joint Masters degrees in Jewish Education from the Rhea Hirsch School of Education and in Jewish Communal Service from HUC-JIR in Los Angeles. In 1998, he completed a fellowship in Secondary School Leadership at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.