Dr. Chen Mandel-Edrei completed her doctoral studies at the University of Maryland. She is a scholar of Modern Hebrew Literature and Hasidism. Her dissertation dealt with Hasidic hagiographic literature that emerged in mid-nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, exploring the historical and social contexts that enabled its growth and its modern literary features. Mandel-Edrei was a postdoctoral fellow at the Open University of Israel and a Lady Davis postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Her current research project examines the formation of popular Jewish literature for the masses in Eastern Europe. It explores the emergence of the trivial novel, derogatorily referred to as "shund" (“trashy”) literature, the connections between it and Hasidic hagiographic booklets, and the contribution of both to creating a new mass readership. The research will address the mutual influence, exchange, and diffusion between highbrow and lowbrow genres, literary ideologies, aesthetics, and consumerism.