Leadership Team
Dr. Rebecca Cypess
Rebecca Cypess is Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Mordecai D. Katz and Dr. Monique C. Katz Dean of the Undergraduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yeshiva University. Committed to the model of servant-leadership, she strives to promote and highlight excellence in teaching, research, and service among the faculty, students, and staff of Stern College for Women and Yeshiva College. Cypess is dedicated to fostering interdisciplinary thinking and scholarly collaboration, especially by helping to bring the expansive study of Torah into dialogue with deep, open-ended inquiry across the academic disciplines. She writes about the purposes of higher education in Jewish Life at Wake the Dawn: A Jewish Vision of Higher Education.
Prior to her work at Yeshiva University, Cypess served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Music at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. Notable accomplishments from her administrative tenure there include the creation of an Arts in Health Research Lab in collaboration with the Rutgers School of Public Health and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, as well as the establishment of interdisciplinary curricular programs in collaboration with the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and the Rutgers Business School. She also served for eight years as founding co-chair of Rutgers JFAS (Jewish Faculty, Administrators, and Staff), a grassroots group of Jewish employees that combats antisemitism as well as anti-Israel bias and promotes a positive, supportive environment for Jews on campus.
Starting in 2023, the disturbing rise in antisemitism in higher education led Cypess to begin publishing and speaking widely on the purposes of academia and how it can be reclaimed as a site of reason and understanding. Her work on these issues has appeared in venues such as Tablet, Inside Higher Ed, and the Wall Street Journal.
Dean Michael Strauss
Michael Strauss is the Interim Dean of the Sy Syms School of Business as well as a Clinical Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur-In-Residence and Director of The Rennert Entrepreneurial Institute. From 2017-2019 he also served as the Interim Dean and from 2011-2017 as an Associate Dean at the Sy Syms School of Business. Before joining Yeshiva University, Dean Strauss was chairman of Sherwood Consulting Group, Inc., a management advisory firm dedicated to steering emerging growth companies. In addition, he served as CEO of multiple companies, delivering expertise in turn-around management. Dean Strauss’ industry expertise was forged during his twelve years at American Express which he departed as the executive vice president of the Travel Related Services Division. His other experience includes serving in several financial and management capacities at American Airlines, the Bank of New York and Citigroup. He has a BBA from The City College of New York and an MBA from Baruch College, City University of New York. Dean Strauss was born and raised in Israel and is fluent in both Hebrew and German.
Dr. Sara Asher
Dr. Sara Asher is a licensed psychologist and higher education administrator serving as Dean of Students at Yeshiva University. As the lead student affairs officer, she oversees student success and retention, learning support, residence life, athletics, student life, and Sy Syms School of Business and Yeshiva College academic advisement. Her focus is fostering a vibrant campus that promotes belonging, wellness, and community while supporting students' academic growth. Dr. Asher advances the student experience through student feedback, data-driven program evaluation, and cross-departmental collaboration.
Prior to her current role, Dr. Asher served as Director of School Psychology at Yeshiva of Central Queens and held senior positions at the Yeshiva University Counseling Center. Her background includes private practice and liaison work with child protective services, giving her broad insight into student needs across developmental stages. Her expertise extends to crisis management, student conduct, and staff supervision and development. She speaks frequently on leadership, student engagement, and student success, and is committed to shaping a university experience where students thrive academically and personally.
Rabbi Yosef Kalinsky
Rabbi Dr. Yosef Kalinsky earned his BA in economics at Yeshiva College, his master’s in education at Azrieli Graduate School, his master's in social work at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, and his semikhah at RIETS, where he subsequently was a fellow in the Bella and Harry Wexner Kollel Elyon. He was just named dean of the men's undergraduate Torah studies program at Yeshiva University in 2019 and the Max and Marion Administrative Dean of RIETS in 2024. Rabbi Kalinsky lives with his family on the Wilf campus and enjoys spending time with students seven days a week.
Dr. James Camara
After earning his PhD in Chemistry from Columbia University and a postdoctoral year at the University of Illinois, Dr. Camara joined the Chemistry faculty at Yeshiva College in 2011. Since then, he has distinguished himself as a talented academic and administrator with a passion for supporting students and colleagues at Stern College and Yeshiva College. In addition to his dedicated, forward-looking teaching for both majors and nonmajors on the two campuses, he has ably managed budgets, instruments, and labs. His administrative accomplishments include distinguished tenures as Director of Pre-Health Advising at Yeshiva College and as Co-Chair of the undergraduate-wide Academic Integrity Committee, in which capacities he has successfully advanced our students’ success and our colleges’ shared mission. He has also served on numerous cross-campus committees, building strong, collaborative relationships with faculty, staff, and students and a keen understanding of university operations. In all this work, Dr. Camara has exhibited not only effectiveness and efficiency, but also sensitivity and empathy.
In his new role as Associate Dean for Strategy and Operations, Dr. Camara will apply his creativity, collaborative leadership style, data-driven decision making, technological proficiency, and empathetic understanding of the student and faculty experiences to help drive improvements that bolster student success and institutional excellence.
Dr. Marnin Young
Dr. Marnin Young will assume the position of Associate Dean for Academic Affairs this summer. Dr. Young has served on the Art History faculty at Stern College since 2008 and has been Chair of Art History since 2018. An accomplished scholar of Impressionism with an extensive record of peer-reviewed books, articles, and chapters, as well as exhibition catalogues for major museums, Dr. Young has also received competitive grants including a Fulbright and a Getty Research Support Grant, and he is currently at work on a book manuscript on Georges Seurat. At Yeshiva University, he has been a recipient of numerous awards, including the Lillian F. and William M. Silber Professor of the Year Award, the Dean Karen Bacon Faculty Award, and the Senior Class Professor of the Year Award. Dr. Young comes to this position with extensive administrative experience, including not only his seven years as department chair but also work on the Stern Honors Committee, the Yeshiva University Museum Exhibition Committee, and the YU Faculty Council.
Shoshana Schechter
Over the past five years, Dean Schechter has enhanced the Jewish environment on campus dramatically through expansion of the faculty, mashgichim/ot (spiritual mentors), extra- and cocurricular events on weekdays and weeknights, and shabbat programming. Dean Schechter directs the Mechina program at Stern College and has developed personal relationships with countless students on the Beren campus, advising them in their growth and development as Torah-oriented Jews and helping them achieve new heights in their learning and Avodat Hashem (service of God).
Dr. Yael Muskat
With over 30 years of clinical experience, Dr. Yael Muskat, Psy.D., is the Dean of Mental Health and Wellness Director of the Counseling Center at Yeshiva University. After graduating from Yeshiva University's Stern College for Women, she received a Master's degree in Special Education from Columbia University and a doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Long Island University, C.W. Post. Dr. Muskat continued her clinical training by completing a Post-Doctorate Leadership Fellowship at Westchester Institute for Human Development. She then had over 10 years of experience working as a therapist and consultant in a variety of settings, including schools, hospitals and community mental health centers as well as family court, before coming to Yeshiva University. She started as the Associate Director in 2006 when the Counseling Center was in its first year of operation and became Director in 2013. In that time, the Center has grown to be a mainstay of the University and is utilized by approximately 20 % of the undergraduate population. In this role, Dr. Muskat leads a full staff of clinicians providing psychological services to undergraduate and graduate students at the Wilf Campus and Beren campuses.
At Yeshiva University, she has given many workshops and skills trainings for staff and students regarding college mental health. She has received advanced training in Dialectic Behavior Therapy, Somatic Intervention trauma therapy, and Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples. Dr. Muskat is committed to the destigmatization of mental health issues and to providing proactive services to promote wellness and emotional health.
Dr. Muskat is Rebbetzin of the Young Israel of Oceanside, where she has been privileged to raise her family and to be part of a warm and vibrant community.
Dr. Erica Brown
Dr. Erica Brown is the Vice Provost for Values and Leadership at Yeshiva University and the founding director of its Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. She was both a faculty member and a student of Rabbi Sacks’ at Jews’ College, where Rabbi Sacks served as her Masters’ thesis advisor. Erica previously served as the director of the Mayberg Center for Jewish Education and Leadership and an associate professor of curriculum and pedagogy at The George Washington University. Erica is the author of twelve books on leadership, the Hebrew Bible and spirituality. Erica has a daily podcast, “Take Your Soul to Work.” Her latest book Esther: Power, Fate and Fragility in Exile (Maggid) was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.
She has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Tablet, First Things, and The Jewish Review of Books and wrote a monthly column for the New York Jewish Week. She has blogged for Psychology Today, Newsweek/Washington Post’s “On Faith” and JTA and tweeted on one page of Talmud study a day @DrEricaBrown.
Dr. Brown has Master’s degrees from the Institute of Education (University of London), Jews’ College (University of London) and Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Baltimore Hebrew University. Erica was a Jerusalem Fellow, is a faculty member of the Wexner Foundation, an Avi Chai Fellow and the recipient of the 2009 Covenant Award for her work in education. She was the scholar-in-residence at both The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston and as the community scholar for the Jewish Center of New York. She currently serves as a community scholar for Congregation Etz Chaim in Livingston, NJ.