Meet Our Staff
Risa Bierman
Executive Director
She/Her/Hers
Risa Bierman is Texas A&M Hillel’s executive director. Risa has lived in College Station for 22 years and has been actively involved in the local Jewish community. She has 25 years of experience working with college students at various institutions across the country, including nearly 20 years in student life at Texas A&M. She is excited to work with Jewish students at A&M and really make it feel like a welcoming place for them to go to college and grow. Her husband is a professor at Mays Business School and her two sons attend Texas A&M, one is an undergrad and one a graduate student. She can be reached at risa@tamuhillel.org.
Suzana Gildin
Engagement Associate
She/Her/Hers
Suzana Gildin is Texas A&M Hillel’s engagement associate. Suzana has been local to College Station for the last 10 years, is the wife of a Texas A&M professor, and has a background in marketing and communication. Suzana’s principal work is to connect and create a strong bond with our students. In addition, she organizes Hillel events and weekly Shabbat meals (so yummy!). She can be reached at suzana@tamuhillel.org.
Rabbi Jonathan Siger
Visiting Rabbi
He/Him/His
Rabbi Jonathan Siger grew up in Northport, Long Island, New York. He is an alumnus of The Portledge School, and Brandeis University where he graduated with honors in English and American Literature and was awarded the Andrew W. Grossbardt Memorial Prize in Poetry. Rabbi Siger is a graduate of The Second City’s Conservatory of Improvisation in Chicago, where he worked as an assistant producer for the famed comedy theater.
He received his Masters Degree and later his Rabbinical Ordination from the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 2002 and is a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, representing the Reform movement. As a student, pulpits he served were geographically diverse, from Grand Forks, North Dakota to Brunswick, Georgia.
Jonathan spent several years as the Campus Rabbi for Hillel at the University of Florida in Gainesville and then was named Executive Director of Central Florida Hillel, serving the largest undergraduate Jewish population in the country. In 2010, he and his family moved to the suburbs of Houston.
In addition to his responsibilities as the spiritual leader of Congregation Jewish Community North in Spring, Texas, Rabbi Siger serves as a Lead Patrol and Special Operations Chaplain for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, and as National Chaplain for the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity.