Danielle Wirsansky was awarded the P.E.O. Scholar Award. Wirsansky’s full-length play, Sterling Legacy, written in Israel during her Fulbright fellowship and exploring Holocaust memory and artifact ethics, was produced at Palaver Tree Theatre in Crawfordville, Florida, in November 2025 as was her musical, Annexed, geared towards Holocaust education,and performed at Florida State University. Her short play, Exhaust, about gas vans during the Holocaust, and her short play, When the Scythe Met the Stone, about Polish ballerina Franciszka Mann’s act of resistance at Auschwitz, were also performed at Florida State University in early 2025.

Wirsansky is a PhD Candidate in Modern European History at Florida State University whose research focuses on gender, intelligence, and resistance during the Second World War. She is also a playwright and director who uses theatre as a platform for Holocaust education and public history, connecting scholarship with wider audiences.