The grandson of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel from the USSR about a decade after the founding of the Jewish State, Dr. Pilnik is the Director of the Emil A. and Jenny Fish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Prior to becoming the Fish Center's founding Director in 2020, he was the Executive Director of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center (HERC) in Milwaukee from 2014 till 2020. 

Dr. Pilnik earned his BA at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, majoring in Comparative Literature and Jewish Thought; his MA in Jewish Studies from McGill University and, in 2013, a Ph.D. from the Jewish Theological Seminary in the field of Modern Jewish Studies. He is the author of The Ravine of Memory: Babyn Yar between the Holocaust and the Great Patriotic War (Purdue University Press, 2025).