ACACIA DIETZ
In 2020, Acacia co-founded Beyond Barriers with Jeff Schoep and serves as its volunteer Executive Director. That same year, she began consulting with the Simon Wiesenthal Center on extremism research and online threat monitoring, supporting prevention-focused analysis and educational response efforts.
In 2023, Acacia was hired by the Simon Wiesenthal Center as Logistics Coordinator for its first Mobile Museum of Tolerance in Illinois. Mobile Museums of Tolerance offer a world-class learning experience, utilizing innovative technology and interactive lessons to bring its message of tolerance directly to schools and communities nationwide. In 2025, she was appointed Associate Director of Operations, overseeing national operations for the Center’s expanding fleet of mobile, immersive education museums.
Her work in countering extremism is grounded in lived experience. Raised in a conservative Christian household as the daughter of a preacher, Acacia never imagined she would become involved in an extremist movement. After leaving a dysfunctional and abusive relationship, she was drawn into far-right communities through social media and pulled into an echo chamber that normalized extremism and distorted reality. Following the Christchurch massacre, she made the decision to leave the movement.
During her involvement, Acacia served as the propagandist and multimedia content creator for the National Socialist Movement, gaining firsthand insight into how extremist narratives are packaged, amplified, and adapted to evade scrutiny and expand reach. After exiting, she committed herself to understanding how radicalization takes hold—and how education, early intervention, and community engagement can disrupt those pathways before they escalate into violence.
With more than 20 years of experience in administrative leadership, organizational management, and program coordination, along with academic training in social work, Acacia brings a systems-level, trauma-informed perspective to large-scale education and prevention initiatives.
Today, her work focuses on scaling prevention-centered education, strengthening national operational infrastructure, and translating lived experience into strategies that interrupt radicalization before it leads to violence.
Acacia also produces #BeyondBarriersPodcast & Coffee & Conversation Podcast.