Dr. Rabbi Aaron Panken, z”l, was President of HUC-JIR, and taught Rabbinic and Second Temple Literature in the New York campus. An alumnus of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, he earned his doctorate in Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU, and his ordination from HUC-JIR. Panken was a certified commercial pilot and sailor with a degree in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and the author of The Rhetoric of Innovation.