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David Machlis, PhD, Associate Professor of Finance and Economics, Wins 2023 Long Island Business News Diversity in Business Award

Garden City, NY (03/17/2023) — After years of work fostering understanding between people of different cultural backgrounds and increasing awareness of the Holocaust, David Machlis, PhD, associate professor of finance and economics in the Robert B. Willumstad School of Business, has been named a recipient of the 2023 Long Island Business News Diversity in Business Award.

In his more than five decades at Adelphi, Machlis has distinguished himself as an educator and a global leader in the fight against prejudice and bias. He was the recipient of the inaugural Adelphi President's Humanitarian Award in 2021 and was also a 2018 recipient of Adelphi's Teaching Excellence Award.

Raising Understanding and Awareness of the Holocaust

Machlis is co-founder of an innovative program bringing diverse communities to Poland to study the Holocaust and examine the roots of antisemitism, prejudice and intolerance.

That initiative-the March of the Living, established in 1988, and the associated March of Remembrance and Hope, which he co-founded in 1999-has attracted thousands to study and remember the Holocaust during visits at sites such as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka. The 2012 delegation to the March of the Living included 16 World War II concentration camp liberators. "It was my dream to identify the liberators, create a program and see to every detail, such as having a physician and an ambulance on tap, or renting uniforms for those who didn't have their own," he said at the time.

Two Museums Trip: Helping Today's Students Understand Hate and Intolerance

In March 2023, Machlis and Joseph Celentano, MBA '04, Willumstad senior adjunct faculty member, led a group of 20 Black and Jewish students and Adelphi administrators on a two-day trip to Washington, D.C., to visit the National Museum of African American History & Culture and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Other Initiatives to Encourage Diversity

Machlis served as executive producer of the 2021 television special Medicine and Morality-Lessons from the Holocaust and COVID-19. The 2022 program Let There Be Light: Kristallnacht Initiative, which Machlis also produced, commemorated 1938's Kristallnacht. He was also central to facilitating Oprah Winfrey's historic broadcast with Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2006.

About Adelphi: A modern metropolitan university with a personalized approach to higher learning

Adelphi University, New York, is a highly awarded, nationally ranked, powerfully connected doctoral research university dedicated to transforming students' lives through small classes with world-class faculty, hands-on learning and innovative ways to support academic and career success. Adelphi offers exceptional liberal arts and sciences programs and professional training at the undergraduate and graduate level with particular strength in our Core Four-Arts and Humanities, STEM and Social Sciences, the Business and Education Professions, and Health and Wellness.

Recognized as a Best College by U.S. News & World Report, Adelphi is Long Island's oldest private coeducational university. It serves more than 7,250 students at its beautiful main campus in Garden City, New York-just 23 miles from New York City's cultural and internship opportunities-and at dynamic learning hubs in Manhattan, the Hudson Valley and Suffolk County, as well as online.

More than 119,000 Adelphi graduates have gained the skills to thrive professionally as active, engaged citizens, making their mark on the University, their communities, and the world.

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David Machlis, PhD, associate professor of finance and economics in the Robert B. Willumstad School of Business.

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