Stephen D. Smith is an international speaker and oral historian who specializes in immersive media. He is executive chairman and co-founder of StoryFile, the world’s first AI conversational video platform that brings video to life.
Smith also serves as executive director emeritus of USC Shoah Foundation, the archive founded by Steven Spielberg to document the Holocaust and global genocides, and to develop empathy, understanding and respect through testimony. He is a theologian by training and in that capacity is a USC Visiting Professor of Religion, where he researches genocide-related testimony.
On April 24, Smith will present “Holocaust XR: How New Media is Enabling Memory and Education,” this year’s Holocaust Lecture at Elmhurst University.
The UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education, Smith also founded the UK Holocaust Centre in England, and cofounded the Aegis Trust for the prevention of crimes against humanity and genocide.
He has served as a producer on a number of film and new media projects, including Dimensions in Testimony and the VR project The Last Goodbye, an award-winning, virtual-reality film that transports viewers inside the Nazi death camp Majdanek. Stephen has authored several books and has two titles forthcoming this year: The Trajectory of Memory and Holocaust XR.
Stephen is a member of the order of the British Empire.
The Holocaust Service of Remembrance and Lecture will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 24, in the Frick Center, Founders Lounge. The lecture is part of the Religious Literacy Project at Elmhurst University. Admission is free but reservations are encouraged. For questions and more information, email marketing@elmhurst.edu.