Our Staff

Stuart Rockoff was born in Ft. Worth and raised in Houston, Texas and graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in history.  He received his Ph.D. in US history from the University of Texas at Austin with a special emphasis on race, immigration and American Jewish history.  He has taught courses in American and ethnic history at such schools as the University of Texas and Millsaps College and has published numerous articles and essays on southern Jewish history. For 11 years, he served as the historian at the Institute of Southern Life. In November 2013, he became just the third executive director of the Mississippi Humanities Council, following in the large footsteps of Dr. Cora Norman and Dr. Barbara Carpenter. Under his leadership, the MHC develops and supports a wide range of public humanities programs that explore Mississippi’s rich history and culture. He was a member of the scholarly review board for both the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. He currently serves on the board of the Mississippi Book Festival and the state’s National Register of Historic Places Review Board. He lives in Jackson with his wife Susan.

Originally from Columbus, Mississippi, John has lived in the Jackson Metro area since 1997. Shortly after graduating from Mississippi State University with a B.A. in history, he joined the museum division staff of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. During his five years with MDAH, he became an inaugural member of the curatorial team for the Two Mississippi Museums. As program and outreach officer, John oversees and develops council-conducted programs, such as Ideas on Tap and The More Perfect Union initiative. In addition, he cultivates partnerships with educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and community groups to guide grant applications and promote MHC programs.

A proud Mississippian raised in Madison, MiMi has built her academic and professional career around telling, preserving, and memorializing the stories of her home state. She is a graduate of Jackson State University, where she earned her B.B.A. in Marketing with honors, and the University of Mississippi, where she earned her M.A. in Southern Studies. Her path to the humanities has been shaped by her community work, creativity, and curiosity. During her graduate studies, MiMi served as the research assistant to author and professor W. Ralph Eubanks on the Black Power at Ole Miss Taskforce, which examined the 1970 wrongful arrests of the “OleMiss89,” (a group of Black students who peacefully protested during an event to bring awareness to the continued mistreatment they faced) and the university’s efforts toward reconciliation. In this role, she conducted archival research, collected oral histories, and presented her findings in public and academic settings. Her time in Southern Studies sharpened her interdisciplinary approach to understanding Mississippi by drawing from history, memory studies, documentary storytelling, and the lived experiences of its people. She serves as the program officer for Witness: The Freedom Memory Project.