Rachel Pistol is a former postdoctoral researcher and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. She joined the department of History and the Parkes Institute at the University of Southampton in 2024 as the Director of the UK Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI-UK) having previously worked at King’s College London as a digital historian on the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI). In 2022 she became the Historical Advisor for World Jewish Relief, formerly the Central British Fund and is working on new ways to make their extensive archive on refugees to Britain during the 1930s and 1940s more accessible. Rachel is also a Committee Member of the Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies (EXILE).

Rachel completed her BA, MA, and PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London under the supervision of the late Professor David Cesarani OBE. Whilst studying for her doctorate she lectured in History at Royal Holloway, winning the College Postgraduate Teaching Prize in 2016 for her innovative teaching methods. She also held a lectureship at Kingston University in Business Information Systems and Quantitative Methods.