The Wellesley Centers for Women is home to an interdisciplinary community of scholars that advance gender equality, social justice, and human wellbeing through high-quality research, theory, and action programs. Their work is supported by dedicated research associates and key program staff. A full list of staff at the Wellesley Centers for Women can be found in the Wellesley College directory.
Associate Research Scientist
Project Archivist
Postdoctoral Research Scientist
Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Associate/Data Analyst
Operations Manager, Work, Families & Children Research Group
Research Associate
Project Coordinator, National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Operations Manager, National SEED Project
Research Assistant, National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Co-Director, National SEED Project
Postdoctoral Research Scientist, National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Research Associate / Data Analyst, Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab
International Scholar-in-Residence
Associate Research Scientist
Research Associate, National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Research Scientist
Women in the Workplace Research Initiative
Research Assistant
Research Administrator and Operations Director, Depression Prevention Research Initiative
Director of Training and Quality Improvement, National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Visiting Scholar, Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab
Research Associate, Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab
Senior Scholar
Research Scientist
First, worries regarding the huge influx of migrants from low-income countries do not seem warranted: the share of immigrant from low-income countries (as percentage of the total immigrant stock residing in the U.S.) is rather small (around three percent) and has remained steady over the period 2001-2017, both among the recent arrivals and the broader immigrant population.
On the other hand, there is a definite downward trend in the share of immigrants who originate from high-income OECD countries, as well as a similar downward trend for Mexicans, with the latter being particularly prominent among recent arrivals. There is a corresponding increase in the number of migrants from lower- and upper middle-income countries, especially from India and China.
We know that since the Great Recession, most immigrants are at least as likely to be employed as the average American native.
Conditional on being employed, immigrants are also more likely to work full time (30 hours or more per week) than employed natives, with the exception of high-income non-OECD country immigrants in the post-recession years, as well as Chinese immigrants in the last few years of the data.
Even if we account for the immigrant – native differences in education, occupations, geographic locations, and other reasons that explain the pay gap, we still see all immigrant groups except for those from high-income OECD countries earning less than comparable natives.
So then, are immigrants from low-income countries poorly educated and not succeeding in the U.S. labor market? Perhaps surprisingly, origin country income and the average education level of the immigrant group are not as highly correlated as one might think.
While immigrants seem to find employment, most of them are not earning wages as high as the average American.
Jim StrouseJim Strouse joined the Open Circle team in July 2011 as the Lead Trainer and Coach. Having worked in public schools, business, and higher education, Jim brought fifteen years of varied training, coaching, and teaching experience to this role. Jim was passionate about making positive change for students, teachers and administrators within education that tap into positive psychology, mindfulness and personal growth.
At Dean College in Franklin, MA, he served as an Adjunct Professor and Academic Coach, teaching the Dean Foundations seminar for incoming students. Jim has also worked as a corporate trainer and instructional designer, secondary school Health teacher, and Peer Mediation Coordinator in the Watertown Public Schools. Jim earned his master’s degree in Adult and Organizational Learning from Suffolk University and his bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Clark University. His two sons are the beneficiaries of the Open Circle Curriculum at their elementary school.
Director of Training & Quality Improvement, National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Thara FullerThara Fuller joined the Open Circle team in July 2018 from the Vermont public school system where she directed the district’s afterschool and summer programs. As an educational administrator, and a former elementary school teacher, Thara understood the tremendous importance of social and emotional learning in educating the whole child. She also brought experience as a coach to individuals and organizational teams.
At the New England Resource Center for Higher Education, Ms. Fuller served as an organizational change consultant to teams of faculty and administrators focused on better supporting underserved students. At Brandeis University, she established the Center for Experiential Learning, a hub for teaching and learning using hands-on projects and real-world experiences. She finds joy in helping create learning environments where young people and adults meaningfully connect in curiosity and respect for each other’s differences.
Operations Manager, Justice and Gender-Based Violence Research Initiative
Project Associate & Director of Financial Operations, National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Visiting Scholar, Justice and Gender-Based Violence Research Initiative
Senior Scholar
Editor in Chief, Women's Review of Books
Research Associate, National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Research Associate, National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Research Associate, National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Research Associate/Assistant Methodologist
Senior International Scholar-in-Residence
Research Scientist
Higher Education Access for Parenting Students Research Initiative
Visiting Scholar
Social and Emotional Learning Expert
Co-Director
National SEED Project (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity)
Associate Research Scientist
National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
ejohns17@wellesley[dot]edu
Link to website
Applied microeconomist with research focus in health economics
Erin Johnson, Ph.D. worked as a research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) and a visiting lecturer in the economics department at Wellesley College during the 2016-2017 academic year; she continues her teaching at Wellesley College (updated September 2017). She is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Johnson is an applied microeconomist who uses large datasets to answer health policy questions. Recent projects have studied the factors that influence expert decision-making in health care.
Johnson’s paper with M. Marit Rehavi, titled “Physicians Treating Physicians: Information and Incentives in Childbirth,” provides new evidence on how financial incentives and patient information affect physician treatment decisions. Using rich micro-data on millions of childbirths, the paper compares the treatment of physicians when they are patients with that of non-physicians. Physician-patients are 10 percent less likely to get a Cesarean Section than non-physician patients, and the effect is reversed in an environment where there is a financial incentive for vaginal birth rather than Cesarean section. While financial incentives affect the treatment of non-physicians, physician-patients are largely unaffected, suggesting information is an effective counterweight to provider incentives.
Recently, Johnson has studied how the physician-patient relationship affects treatment as well as how providers respond to diagnostic labels, evidence-based treatment guidelines, and guidelines that are not evidence-based.
Before joining WCW in 2016, Johnson was an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and an A.B. from Princeton University. She previously worked as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group.
Johnson has studied how physicians respond to quality information when referring patients to specialists, how physicians respond to financial incentives, how the physician-patient relationship affects treatment, and the impact of treatment decisions on patient health.
Physicians Treating Physicians: Information and Incentives in Childbirth (with M. Marit Rehavi). American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (February 2016)
Physician-Induced Demand, Encyclopedia of Health Economics (2014), pp. 77-82.
American Economic Association
American Society of Health Economists
Research Scientist
Black Girls and STEM Education Research Initiative
Writer-in-Residence
Senior Scholar
There were no projects found for this person or project.
Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant is a visiting scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) for the 2013-2014 academic year while on sabbatical from her position as professor of women's studies at DePauw University in Greencastle, IN. She holds an AB in English literature from Bryn Mawr College, an MA in Africana Studies from Cornell University, and an Ed.D. in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Dr. Beauboeuf-Lafontant is a feminist sociologist with interests in racialized gender, embodiment, girlhood, and alternative femininities. Her research, which has been published in Teachers College Record, The Urban Review, Meridians, Gender & Society, and Qualitative Sociology, has examined teachers’ negotiations of race and gender in their identities and pedagogy, and the incorporation of feminine standards of goodness into the body and psyche. The latter is most recently investigated in her book, Behind the Mask of the Strong Black Woman: Voice and the Embodiment of a Costly Performance (Temple University Press: 2009).
During her time at WCW, Dr. Beauboeuf-Lafontant is working on a book manuscript focused on the rise of the “school girl” and the “college woman” as social identities, and their developmental and ethical impact on the lives and work of a group of Progressive Era social reformers.
B.S., University of Pennsylvania; M.B.A., Stanford University
nbiro@wellesley[dot]edu \ LinkedIn
Link to CV
Former co-director of Open Circle
Nova Biro, M.B.A., served as Open Circle co-director from 2009 to 2017, after initially joining as director of finance and operations in 2007. Her experience includes more than fifteen years in leadership, program management, partnerships, finance and marketing in both the education and technology fields. Prior roles include Senior Product Manager at Yahoo!, Co-Founder and Director of Product Management at TradeInteriors.com and Strategy Consultant at Gemini Consulting. She is the proud mother of twin girls, who loved attending an Open Circle elementary school.
Biro holds an M.B.A. and a Certificate in Public Management from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and also holds bachelor's degrees in Economics from the Wharton School and Systems Engineering from School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Supporting Social-Emotional Learning in Massachusetts. Moderated full-day workshop. Open Circle and Apperson, Inc. Wellesley, MA. January 2016.
Collaboration to Achieve Whole School SEL Across a Large, Urban District. Paper presentation, Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness Fall 2014 Conference, Washington, DC. September 2014.
The Importance of Social and Emotional Learning to Boston Schools. Testimony for Boston City Council Docket #0451. Boston, MA. December 2012.
Open Circle’s Best Practices for Social and Emotional Learning. Presentation to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Malden, MA. March 2011.
Recent funding secured for Open Circle includes grants from NoVo Foundation, Templeton Foundation (in partnership with Greater Good Science Center), Partners HealthCare (in partnership with Boston Public Health Commission) and program fees from over 200 schools.
Porche, M., Grossman, J., Costello, D., Biro, N., MacKay, N., Rivers, S. April 2015. Collaboration to Enhance Whole School Social and Emotional Learning for Elementary Students. American Educational Research Association 2015 Annual Meeting.
Porche, M., Grossman, J., Biro, N., MacKay, N., & Rivers, S. September 4, 2014. Collaboration to Achieve Whole School SEL Across a Large, Urban District. Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness Fall 2014 Conference.
Co-authored several Open Circle publications, including the Open Circle Curriculum Grades K-5, Open Circle training manuals and assessment tools, Open Circle quarterly e-newsletters, and several white papers: Helping Children Deal with Traumatic Events, Open Circle and DESSA Alignment, Open and PBIS, Reinforcing SEL Schoolwide, SEL Best Practices.
Founding steering committee member, SEL Alliance for Massachusetts, 2013 to present.
Board member, World of Wellesley, 2015 to present.
Alumni, LeadBoston, Class of 2013.
Participant, SEED Seminars hosted at the Wellesley Centers for Women, 2015 to present.
Ph.D. and M.A., Tufts University, B.A., Wellesley College
kfay@wellesley[dot]edu
Link to CV
Research interests include youth and adolescent development with a focus on physical activity, healthy eating, and out-of-school time.
Kristen Fay Poston, Ph.D. was a research scientist at the National Institute of Out-of-School Time (NIOST) for several years through 2016, and a visiting lecturer in the psychology department at Wellesley College. She remains in the latter position where she teaches courses in adolescent and adult psychology. Her research focused primarily on identifying and describing the individual and contextual factors that influence developmental trajectories of positive psychological and physical health among adolescents, most specifically with regard to weight regulation and perception, dietary habits, eating attitudes and behaviors, and patterns of physical activity. She usef an interdisciplinary approach that integrates psychological theories with nutrition science, education, public health, and psychiatric perspectives. Methodologically, Poston has worked with a variety of longitudinal and cross-sectional data sets.
Poston earned her bachelor of arts degree in psychology from Wellesley College and earned her Master’s degree and doctorate in applied child development from Tufts University.
Poston was the principal investigator of a mixed methods evaluation of an afterschool and summer program designed to measure academic and psychosocial outcomes among middle school youth enrolled in the program. She also collaborated with the Providence Afterschool Association (PASA) on their Badging Initiative. Poston was a member of the NIOST research team evaluating the impact of a before-school physical activity program on children’s learning and non-learning outcomes. She was also a member of the team evaluating the Boston and Beyond Summer Learning Project, an integrative summer program that unites Boston Public Schools with community-based organizations to promote improved learning and non-learning outcomes among urban youth.
Prior to joining NIOST, Poston held research appointments at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University and at the Massachusetts General Hospital Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program in Boston. She has also taught courses in adolescent psychology at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education.
Executive Director of WCW, 2012-2025
Womanism Research Initiative
Senior Advisor
National SEED Project (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity)
The Wellesley Centers for Women is home to an interdisciplinary community of scholars that advance gender equality, social justice, and human wellbeing through high-quality research, theory, and action programs. Their work is supported by dedicated research associates and key program staff. A full list of staff at the Wellesley Centers for Women can be found in the Wellesley College directory.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak before this commission. I worked for the Massachusetts Department of Education (MA DOE) in the educational equity unit for 14 yrs (1978-1992). Prior to my time at the MA DOE, I worked as a social studies teacher in a middle school (1971-1973), as well as serving as a drug/alcohol counselor in Somerville schools (1974-1976). Since 1992, I have been a senior research scientist at Wellesley College doing research that I began at the MA DOE in 1978, looking at gender-based harassment/violence in schools. I focus on what I call “the public performance of gendered violence” – that being the enactment of sexual harassment in schools (Stein, 1995).
Two main points before this commission:
(1). I urge the commission to send to every school principal in MA, a copy of the extremely helpful US Dept of Education’s Office for Civil Rights “Dear Colleague Guidance on Bullying and Harassment,” issued on Oct 26, 2010. I provided a copy in advance of my testimony (link to letter).
MA schools may have overlooked this important document as they were consumed with complying with the new MA state law on bullying. This guidance from OCR helps to disentangle the conflation of bullying and harassment, and clarifies that schools must comply with anti-harassment laws that are part of the civil rights framework that guide education in our country. In addition, the OCR memo asserts that school personnel cannot use the label “bullying” when addressing harassment and other civil rights violations. In other words, federal civil rights laws trump the “bullying” label/framework.
Case in point: It is my belief that both Phoebe Prince & Carl Walker-Hoover, were both sexually harassed - because of their gender; and to call it “bullying” removes or reduces the responsibility that the schools have to insure the safety and rights of the students under federal civil rights laws.
Allow me to read some relevant sections from the OCR guidance:
ED is issuing the Dear Colleague Letter to clarify the relationship between bullying and discriminatory harassment, and to remind schools that by limiting their responses to a specific application of an anti-bullying or other disciplinary policy, they may fail to properly consider whether the student misconduct also results in discrimination in violation of students’ federal civil rights.
“If harassment has occurred, a school must take prompt and effective steps reasonably calculated to end the harassment, eliminate any hostile environment, and prevent its recurrence. These duties are a school’s responsibility even if the misconduct also is covered by an anti-bullying policy and regardless of whether the student makes a complaint, asks the school to take action, or identifies the harassment as a form of discrimination.”
(2) My warning about curriculum on bullying – it’s a matter of “consumer protection” and “consumer fraud.” The new state law calls for the MA DOE to compile a list of evidence-based curricula, best practices and academic-based research (see section (j), lines 189-200).
Schools are flooded with bullying curricula and training protocols that lack evidence of their efficacy. These materials and their authors promote claims of effectiveness yet the research results do not show it or they have not been evaluated. Or if they have, these evaluations have major gaps and raise serious concerns. Some have been evaluated by their author(s), which presents a conflict of interest and bias problem. Other results—assuming they were effective—have not been replicated with groups beyond the initial group of students. If the effects cannot be replicated in other environments with more diverse populations, then there is some doubt about the usefulness of that particular curricular intervention with a wider group of subjects, schools, and youth. And the integrity of some of these evaluations must be called into question as schools volunteered to be included in the studies, after having already expressed an interest in these materials. Thus, the evaluation projects that did not utilize a random assignment at the beginning of the studies call the whole enterprise into question.
Further, rarely have the results of any of these mock evaluations been published in peer-reviewed journals that scholars and researchers can read, discuss, debate, and replicate. Their importance and effectiveness is fabricated and resides only in their own minds.
Many of the curriculum materials—whether they are free like “Don’t Laugh At Me” which was developed by Operation Respect, an organization founded by Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary, or cost thousands of dollars like the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program—have demonstrated minimal effectiveness despite being popular. The Olweus program is used very widely, but aside from an initial effort in rural South Carolina in the mid-1990s, there are minimal reports of effectiveness or replication published about their U.S. research results despite its widespread use. The program is not proven to be effective in the U.S., yet school districts keep paying for this expensive service based on Olweus’ promotion of its effectiveness in Norway & Sweden.
So, what’s a school district to do? Go with something cheap? or something expensive? But what if isn’t any data to really make the case with either or to distinguish one from the other? There are abundant examples of both floating around our state, free ones and expensive ones, waiting to colonize our needy districts.
Two examples:
(1). I was horrified to learn of one that was imposed on middle school students in Lexington MA, where the students had to watch a video of the shootings and aftermath at Columbine High School. This assembly and video was put together by parents of the one of the students killed at Columbine (“Rachel’s’ Challenge”). I have been all over their web site and there are no claims of evaluation- only “inspiration.” & a lot of marketing of their T-shirts, banners, postcards and books for sale. Where’s the evidence in all this?
(2) Another sad case in point that has great relevancy to MA: is the trainer/speaker Barbara Coloroso, who spoke at S. Hadley High School before Phoebe Prince’s suicide, and then she came back to own, on her own dime, after the suicide. She is someone who has written a few popular books on bullying and parenting which is vastly different from offering a tested set of interventions- yet she is heralded as some great world-wide expert on bullying. Not even her web site makes the claims of the evaluated effectiveness of her approach. Yet, she has been anointed as a worldwide expert.
The tragedy of lives lost should spur action. But this should not result in reckless implementation of unproven programs that respond to isolated issues rather than holistic policy creation, professional development, and comprehensive programming, supported by rigorous, unbiased evaluation. Only about five percent of existing intervention, prevention, and remediation programs, in general, has demonstrated any value/worth of effectiveness (Ttofi & Farrington, 2009). I urge the commission and the state DOE to compile a list that is not comprised of junk science. Clearly the school districts are floundering without some guidance based on science and rigorous evaluation.
Selected References Consulted
Berger, K.S. (2007). Update on bullying at school: Science forgotten? Developmental Review, 27, 90-126.
Espelage, D., Stein, N., Rose, C. & Elliot, J. (2009). Middle School Bullying & Sexual Violence: Unique & Shared Predictors. Presented at the American Educational Research Association Conference, San Diego, CA (April 2009) and the National Sexual Assault Conference, Alexandria, VA (September 2009).
Farrington, D. & Ttofi, M.M. (2009). School-based programs to reduce bullying and victimization. Campbell Systematic Reviews 2009:6.
Ferguson, C.J., Miguel, C. S., Kilbrun, J.C., & Sanchez, JR & P. (2007). The effectiveness of School-based anti-bullying programs: A meta-analytic review. Criminal Justice Review, 32(4), 401-414.
Gruber, J.E. & Fineran, S. (2008). Comparing the Impact of Bullying and Sexual Harassment Victimization on the Mental and Physical Health of Adolescents. Sex Roles 59(1-2), 1-13.
Olweus, D. & Limber, S.P. (2010). Bullying in school: An evaluation and dissemination of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. American Orthopsychiatric Association, 80 (1), 124-134.
Ryan, W. & Smith, J. D. (2009) Antibullying Programs in Schools: How Effective are Evaluation Practices? Prev Sci 10, 248-259.
Stein, N. (1995). Sexual harassment in K-12 Schools: The Public Performance of Gendered Violence. Harvard Educational Review, special issue: Violence and Youth. Summer 1995, vol. 65, #2, 145-162.
Stein, N. (2003). Bullying or harassment? The missing discourse of rights in an era of zero tolerance. Arizona Law Review 45(3), 783-799.
Stein, N. (September 11, 2009). Bullying or sexual violence? Implications for prevention education in K–12 schools. National Sexual Violence Resource Center & Pennsylvania Coalition against Rape, National Sexual Assault Conference. Alexandria, VA.
Stein, N. (2010). Sexual harassment left behind: What the bullying framework is doing to civil rights laws and framework. Research & Action Report, Wellesley Centers for Women, Fall/Winter 2010, Vol. 32, #1, 6-7.
Stein, N., Tolman, D., Porche, M. & Spencer, R. (2002). Gender safety: A new concept for safer and more equitable schools. Journal of School Violence 1(2), 35-50.
Ttofi, M.M. & Farrington, D.P. (2009). School bullying: risk factors, theories and interventions. Chapter for Handbook of Crime. Brookman, Maguire, Pierpoint, & Bennett (Eds.). Cullompton, Devon: Willan.
Ttofi, M.M. & Farrington, D.P. (2009). What works in preventing bullying: Effective elements of anti-bullying programmes. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, (1)1, 13-24.
Vreeman, R.C. & Carroll, A.E. (2007). A Systematic Review of School-Based Interventions to Prevent Bullying. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 161, 78-88.
1 - Amy Hoffman - introduction
2 - How has Women's Review of Books sustained publication?
3 - How do you select books for Women's Review of Books?
4 - Tell us more about the blog for Women's Review of Books?
5 - Are there any books or authors that you have particularly enjoyed?
6 - Why should people subscribe to the Women's Review of Books?
Kelsy Kretschmer holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Irvine, an M.A. in sociology from the University of California, Irvine, and a B.A. in sociology from the Oregon State University.
Dr. Kretschmer’s work focuses on the boundaries within and between organizations in the context of the contemporary women’s movement in the United States. She is primarily concerned with how new organizations emerge from existing ones, and how this relationship affects the structure of the continuing organizations, and the structure of the broader social movement they continue to share. In pursuing these interests, she has studied the National Organization for Women and the organizations it has spun off, including Women’s Equity Action League, Feminists for Life, Legal Momentum, and Human Rights for Women, to name a few. Based on a variety of data, including interviews, archival materials, and secondary sources, she has developed a model for understanding the sometimes surprising outcomes for the parent-breakaway relationship. This project provides useful insights into the coalition politics of social movements, where a breakaway organization’s ability to cooperate with its parent will affect the success and public reach of the broader movement. It also contributes to the sociology of gender and inequality by asking how inter-organizational relationships shape feminism as both an ideology and a political movement in the United States.
Dr. Kretschmer has presented parts of this project in a variety of forums, including the American Sociological Association, Pacific Sociological Association, and the Young Scholars in Social Movements conference at Notre Dame University. Her work has been published in Sociological Perspectives and the American Behavioral Scientist. Her article, “Contested Loyalties: Dissident Identity Organizations, Institutions, and Social Movements” was recognized by the Pacific Sociological Association as a Distinguished contribution to Sociological Perspectives in 2010. In this article, Kretschmer compares two organizations with origins in NOW: Catholics for a Free Choice, a pro-choice Catholic organization, and Feminists for Life, a pro-life feminist organization. The central question in this article is, why has Catholics for a Free Choice been more successful than Feminists for Life in bridging two ostensibly incongruent identities? Because feminism is far less monolithic than the Catholic Church, we would expect that Feminists for Life (FFL) would have greater success in building partnerships with other feminist groups, but, surprisingly, FFL has not done so. While feminism may lack the central authority and structure of Catholicism, there is consensus among movement actors about abortion rights. For FFL, abortion rights became a litmus test for exclusion from the feminist movement. Now, FFL works mainly with religious pro-life groups and while this decision was necessary, it has further hurt its feminist credibility. She also find that despite the Catholic Church’s centralized authority, its tradition of dissent gives some measure of credibility to Catholics for a Free Choice and provides it with a community of other dissident Catholic organizations to partner with.
Dr. Kretschmer has also taught a variety of courses, including Political Sociology, Introduction to Sociology, and Social Problems. While at Wellesley College, she is teaching a course on the status of women and the women’s movement in the U.S. for the Writing Program.
Work published elsewhere
Rosanna Hertz is the Luella LaMer professor of sociology and women's and gender studies at Wellesley College where she has taught since 1983. She chaired the Women's Studies Department from 2000-2008.
She is the current president (2009-2010) of the Eastern Sociological Society, the oldest regional association of sociology. The theme she has selected for this year's meeting is "The Economic Crisis and New Social Realities" which will be held in March 2010. She has also been elected to the American Sociological Association's Council from 2009-2011.
She was the co-director of a newly formed Institute on Gender and the New Global Economy and a research scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women. Her scholarship focuses on diverse families in a changing economy and how social inequality at home and in the workplace comes to shape the experiences of women and men. She is interested in how people weave together a life on their own, despite lack of government or workplace supports. Her present research examines how the media portrays unemployment in the U.S. and Canada. She is also completing a study of the interplay of genetics, social interaction, and culture expectations in the formation of web-based donorsibling kin groups.
Her book, Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women Are Choosing Parenthood without Marriage and Creating the New American Family (Oxford University Press, 2006) looks at the changes occurring in women’s lives. As hopes for marriage fade for middle class women, their commitment to motherhood continues. The potent combination of the age-old desire for motherhood and the new possibilities of science are well on their way to creating major changes in the formation and functioning of families. This is a projection of a possible future, one that reevaluates the place of women and men in families. Ultimately, building families from a mother-child core is the future. The book was named Outstanding Academic Title for 2007 by Choice, the review publication for academic libraries. In addition, Single by Chance was a finalist for the prestigious 2006 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems. The award honors writing that “critically addresses an issue of contemporary public importance.” For more information about this book, see rosannahertz.com.
In her groundbreaking 1986 book, More Equal Than Others: Women and Men in Dual-Career Marriages, she provided an early framework for examining the dual-earner marriage. Using in-depth interviews with a select group of middle level employees she examined how couples cope with issues of equality, finances and childrearing. She found that when faced with the choice between demanding relief from inflexible work schedules from their employers and purchasing services to substitute for "homemade" originals, dual-earner couples almost invariably meet the demands of employment. The New York Times praised the book for the “sober and informative” analysis it provided in what is often a controversial topic.
Two earlier empirical studies featured equally penetrating analyses of the interaction between the social organization of family life and the demands of the external economy. The first study (co-authored with Joy Charlton) looked at how working class families whose members live on different shifts stitch together the fragments of their lives to make something whole as time. Of added interest was the context for the shiftwork: military bases, which were among the first to integrate enlisted women into this combat career field.
The second study focused on the dynamics of care and kinship. Hertz interviewed couples of different social classes and racial groups about how they made the decisions about childcare arrangements in order to better understand how ideological beliefs about parenthood, racial concerns about minority status of children and work schedules are factors that inform parents’ decisions. See her home page in the Women’s Studies Department for selected articles.
Hertz teaches courses on the changing family and social policy, the social construction of gender, and women and the global economy. She has had a long-standing interest in social science methodology, which she has incorporated into an interdisciplinary course, “The Feminist Inquiry.”
She received a B.A. at Brandeis University in sociology and philosophy and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University. In addition, she completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Recently she has published articles in the Christian Science Monitor and the Huffington Post. She has been quoted in such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe. She appears frequently in the broadcast media commenting on social problems for local news specials.
Susan M. Reverby is the Marion Butler McLean Professor in the History of Ideas and Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Wellesley College and a historian of American women, medicine and nursing. The first hire at Wellesley in Women's Studies in 1982, she has taught at the college for more than two decades. She is the co-editor of America's Working Women: a Documentary History (1976); Health Care in America: Essays in Social History (1979); and Gendered Domains: Beyond the Public and Private in Women's History (1992). She was the editor of The History of American Nursing: a 32 Volume Reprint Series (1982-83). Her prize-winning book, Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing (New York: Cambridge University Press, l987) is still considered one of the major overview histories of American nursing.
She has completed two books on what is referred to as the infamous "Tuskegee" Syphilis study (1932-72), the longest running non-therapeutic research study in U.S. history that involved the United States Public Health Service and nearly 600 African American men in the counties surrounding Tuskegee, Alabama. The men thought they were being "treated," not studied, for what they thought of as "bad blood." The study has become a central metaphor for distrust of the health care system and as the key example of unethical research. She was a member of the Legacy Committee on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study that successfully lobbied President Bill Clinton to offer a public apology to the surviving men and their heirs in l997. Her edited book of articles and primary documents on the study appeared in 2000 (Tuskegee Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study). Her new book, Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and its Legacy is now available. Please see the following website for more information: http://www.examiningtuskegee.com.
One of her articles on the study, "History of an Apology: From Tuskegee to the White House" won both the Will Solimene Award and the Ralph A. Deterling Award from the New England Chapter of the American Medical Writers Association in l998. Her article on Nurse Eunice Rivers, a key figure in the study, appeared in the Nursing History Review and is reprinted in her edited book on the study, Tuskegee's Truths: Re-thinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
Susan Reverby is completing a book entitled Testifying on Tuskegee: Telling the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Stories that examines the differing narratives that have been created to understand the study. Susan M. Reverby's scholarship has appeared in a wide range of publications from scholarly journals to editorials in the popular press. Her work on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study has appeared in England in both the Times Education Supplement and in the Postgraduate Medical Journal and in the ethics journal, Hastings Center Report, in the United States. She has spoken widely in the United States, Australia, Canada, and Sweden, on the history of gender, ethics and health care issues. She is a frequent commentator on health, gender and race issues in public forums. Most recently she was on WBUR radio's "The Connection" and WGBH television's "Greater Boston" to discuss rising cesarean section rates. She has appeared in several documentaries as a "talking head" on both nursing and the Tuskegee study.
At Wellesley, Susan M. Reverby has taught a wide range of courses from introductory women's studies to history of American health care. Her other courses have focused on history/gender and memory, the politics and history of passing, and the politics of identity in American history.
Susan M. Reverby received her BS degree from Cornell University in Industrial and Labor Relations with a focus on labor and economic history. Her M.A. is from New York University and her Ph.D. is from Boston University in American Studies. She has worked as a community organizer in New York and as a women's health activist. She spent three years as a health policy analyst at the Health Policy Advisory Center in New York in the early 1970s, focusing on women's health and nursing issues. From 1993-1997 she served as the consumer representative on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Obstetrics and Gynecology Devices Advisory Panel, and from 1998 and 2007 served on the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Massachusetts. She is currently the Affirmative Action officer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and has served on its Board of Directors since l998.
She has held the Whitehead and Luella LaMer chairs at Wellesley College and received support for her scholarship from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Association of University Women. She has been a fellow at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe and the W.E.B. DuBois Institute at Harvard. In 2002-03, she received a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard.
In early 2004, a milestone Family Law came into force supporting women’s equality and granting them rights in marriage and divorce, among others.
The 2004 legislation replaces the family law included in the Moudawana and includes the following reforms:
Gender Equality:
The joint responsibility for the family is shared between the husband and wife;
The wife is no longer legally obliged to obey her husband;
An adult woman is no longer under the guardianship of a male family member and is entitled to self-guardianship;
The age of marriage is raised to 18 for both men and women.
Divorce:
The right to divorce is the prerogative of both men and women, exercised under judicial supervision;
The principle of divorce is by mutual rather than unilateral consent.
Polygamy:
Polygamy is subject to judicial consent and governed under rigid legal conditions, making the practice nearly impossible;
The woman has the right to impose a condition in the marriage contract requiring that her husband refrain from taking other wives;
If there is no pre-established condition, the first wife must be informed of her husband’s intent to remarry, the second wife must be informed that her husband-to-be is already married, and moreover, the first wife may ask for a divorce due to harm suffered.
Children’s Rights:
The mother has the right to custody of the child even upon remarriage or relocation;
The child’s right to acknowledgment of paternity is protected in the event that the marriage has not been officially registered.
Senior Scholar
Senior Scholar
Work published elsewhere
Bernard, R., C. Cervoni, C. Desir, & McKamey, C. (2009). “Understanding the “I” in the Academy.” in Luttrell, W., ed. Qualitative Research in Education Reader. New York: Routledge.
Porche, M., McKamey, C. & Wong, P. (2009). Positive Influences of Education and Recruitment on Aspirations of High School Girls to Study Engineering in College. Published conference proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education.
McKamey, C. (1997). Using real world projects in the classroom. Teaching and Change, 4(3), 245-257.
Henry, E., J. Huntley, C. McKamey & Harper, L.T. (1995). To be a teacher: Voices from the classroom. Newbury Park: Corwin Press.
Conference Presentations:
Porche, M., McKamey, C. & Chu, J.Y. (2009). High school students’ masculine and feminine gender ideology and college STEM aspirations. Poster presented at the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.
McKamey, C. (2006). Caring too much to conceptualize the concept of care. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.
Merseth, K., McKamey, C., & Toshalis, E. (2006). University Supervisors as mentors: A case study curriculum for ‘advisors’ and their preservice teachers. Paper presented at the New Teacher Symposium on Teacher Induction, San Jose, CA.
McKamey, C. (2005). Turned apart: Immigrant students remaking themselves in language affinity groups in an urban high school. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Montreal.
McKamey, C. (2005). Witnessing and moral imperatives: Competing teacher discourses. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Montreal.
McKamey, C. (2004). Engaging Latina/o and differential perspectives on caring in education: Toward transethnic and transclass conceptualizations. Panel presentation at the American Educational Research Association, San Diego CA.
Bernard, R., Cervoni, C., Desir, C. & McKamey, C. (2002). Finding the ‘I’ in the academy. Paper presented at the Ethnography and Qualitative Research Education Conference, Dusquene University, Pittsburgh, PA.
Corinne McKamey joined the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) in April 2009 as a postdoctoral research scholar. After obtaining her B.S. from Cornell University and her M.A. from Trinity University, McKamey completed her Ed.D. at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2005. Her dissertation, “You gotta make Washington High like you” qualitatively examined the ways that immigrant students from nearly 20 different countries described and constructed cultures of caring in their Boston public high school. One section of this work documented the ways that students collaboratively engaged with their teachers and peers about issues that students’ cared about – for example, legitimacy, gender and racial equality, and academic success. These cultures of care provided spaces for students with a diverse range of ethnicities, social positions, and experiences to express and attend to their individual and collective needs as learners and participants in a larger school community.
Prior to graduate school, Corinne was a secondary science teacher and curriculum developer in several public, urban schools in San Antonio. TX. During her graduate school studies, McKamey was a researcher on Harvard Project ASSERT (Assessing Strengths and Supporting Affective Resistance in Teaching)—a study that examined teachers’ beliefs about how race, class, and gender informed their relationships with students. More recently she collaborated with Michelle Porche, WCW senior research scientist, on the Centers’ SISTEM (Success in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) project. During her one-year postdoctoral post at WCW, McKamey continued working on this project where she developed her interests in supporting urban students and science education. She was particularly interested in continuing to understand how school contexts shape and are shaped by students’ identity development, including students’ academic, ethnic, and gender identities. Corinne also worked on the project evaluating a middle school sex education program for Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts.
Corrinne is an Assistant Professor of Education at Rhode Island College as of fall 2010.
Flavia C. Peréa, Ph.D., joined the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) in September 2008 as a National Institutes of Child Health and Development (NICHD) Postdoctoral Research Fellow. She received her Ph.D. in Social Policy from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Her dissertation, Academic Performance among Children of Immigrant Families from the Dominican Republic: The Influence of Language, was a secondary analysis of data from the three-year longitudinal study Children of Immigrants: Development in Context (CIDC), based at Brown University. Her dissertation research was based on an asset-based framework that emphasized culture and language as resources central to children’s development, and specifically explored the impact of language acculturation on academic outcomes (grades) among Dominican children. Her results found a significant gender difference between girls and boys who prefer bilingualism, namely that bilingual preference was a predictor of more positive academic outcomes for girls, which was not the case for boys for whom language preference had little to no explanatory power. Her dissertation research was conducted in tandem with her coordination of the four year follow-up study of the CIDC, which examined early academic pathways during middle childhood as predictors of academic achievement in adolescence.
While pursuing her doctoral work, Dr. Peréa was awarded a Fellowship in Child and Family Policy with the National Center for Children and Families at Teachers College, Columbia University; as well as a Spencer Foundation Fellowship in Educational Research. Dr. Peréa has worked as a Researcher for the United Nations as well as for the Office of Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY), and has been a consultant to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the American Cancer Society. In addition, she has extensive experience conducting community based research, notably in Harlem, NYC and Western Massachusetts. She has also been adjunct faculty at Tufts University, Boston College, and Salem State College, where she has taught policy, diversity and applied research to both graduate and undergraduate students.
Dr. Peréa’s research interests include the health of minority and immigrant children and families, particularly Latinos; racial/ethnic health disparities; immigration, acculturation and language; asset-based policy and programming; and community-based participatory research. She is particularly interested in understanding how diverse populations conceptualize health and health disparities, and cultural variations in conceptualizations of health and wellbeing. Dr. Peréa endeavors to bridge the distances between public health, social policy, and health policy, and is interested in understanding how policy impacts the lives and life chances of children and families and the health and wellbeing of people in communities. She works within a strengths-based framework and is particularly interested in developing methods to identify and measure the assets and resources present within the many sectors of community life, in order to understand how they may be leveraged to promote healthy children, families and communities and improve the quality of living environments as well as the services and supports available in communities.
Peréa is interested in applied research that tackles inequities and inequalities across the broad spectrum of health. She seeks to build on her life-long work with diverse children and families to identify culturally appropriate ways to improve the health and wellbeing of Latino and immigrant children and families. By using strength-based models that build on cultural and community assets, she aims to develop research and evaluation tools in dialogue and collaboration with communities in order to inform local-level policy and the development of culturally appropriate programs and services.
Through the NICHD postdoctoral fellowship at Wellesley, Dr. Peréa endeavors to publish some of her research to date and secure external funding to support her ongoing work as well as future projects in development. Her preceptors are Nancy Marshall, Ed.D., and Wendy Wagner Robeson, Ed.D., with whom she will be working with on the Massachusetts child care subsidies study focusing on low-income families in Boston and Somerville, MA. In addition, she will be working with Tufts University on an ongoing community-based study of immigrants’ access to and experience with health and social services in Somerville, and developing a community-based research project to address health disparities among minority and immigrant children in Boston.
Upcoming Professional Presentations
Peréa, F. C., & Martinez, L. S. (2008, October). Disparities mobilization through community-based participatory research: an asset-based approach for fostering public and political will to effect decision making. Paper to be presented at the American Public Health Association annual conference, San Diego, CA.
Martinez, L. S., Peréa, F. C., Freeman, E. R. (2008, October). Step one: assessing community readiness for disparities mobilization. Paper to be presented at the American Public Health Association annual conference, San Diego, CA.
Martinez, L. S., & Peréa, F. C. (2008, November). Working with immigrant and minority adolescents. Oral Presentation to be given at the conference, A View from All Sides: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Parenting Education and Family Support, Marlborough, MA.
Peréa, F. C., & Martinez, L. S. (2008, December). Engaging students in community partnership research for community health education: lessons learned from the Survey of Health and Immigrant Practices in Somerville (SHIPS). Oral Presentation to be given at the conference, Medical Education for the 21st Century – Teaching for Health Equity, Havana, Cuba.
Martinez, L. S., & Peréa, F. C. (2008, December). Educating for health equity: determining and cultivating community capacity for health improvement in Haiti. Oral Presentation to be given at the conference, Medical Education for the 21st Century – Teaching for Health Equity, Havana, Cuba.
*Peréa, F. C. (2009, April). Gender, language, and academic performance: a study of children of immigrant families from the Dominican Republic. Paper to be presented as part of the paper symposium, “Understanding the education immigrant paradox in childhood and adolescence”, to be presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO. (* abstract under review)
Selected Invited Professional Presentations
Peréa, F. C., & Martinez, L. S. (2008, July). A bottom-up approach to creating asset based policies and programs to promote the health and wellbeing of diverse Latino children and families: findings from research and practice. Oral Presentation accepted for the First National Research Conference on Child and Family Policy, Bridgewater State College, Bridgewater, MA.
Martinez, L. S., Peréa, F. C., Clarke, L., & Freeman, E. (2007, November). Community mobilization for the elimination of health disparities. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association, Washington, DC.
Clarke, L., & Freeman, E, Martinez, L. S., & Peréa, F. C. (2007, October). Conference organizer and moderator for Confronting healthcare disparities: is commonwealth care the answer? Second Annual Regional Forum on Health Disparities, Holyoke, MA.
Clarke, L., Freeman, E. R., Martinez, L., & Peréa, F. C. (2007, April). Determining readiness for community engagement for the elimination of health disparities. Oral Presentation given at the biennial New England Regional Minority Health Conference, Mashantucket, CT.
Peréa, F. C., Marks, A. K., Soursourian, M., Gerace, L., & García Coll, C. (2007, March). Early academic pathways as a predictor of academic outcomes in adolescence: a longitudinal study of children of immigrants. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston, MA.
WCW Publications Under Review
Peréa, F. C. (under review). Language, Acculturation, and academic performance among children of immigrant families: A review of the literature. Working Paper Series. Wellesley, MA: The Wellesley Centers for Women.
Alice Frye has an MPH from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Emory University. She is a developmental psychopathologist by training and her overarching goal is to combine in her research endeavors the population level orientation typical of public health with the robust theoretical approach that characterizes developmental psychopathology. She has a long standing interest in the study and remediation of psychopathology among adolescents and emerging adults at risk, and focuses particularly on growth and change in psychopathology and resilience among emerging adults. With respect to specific projects, Dr. Frye worked with Dr. Sumru Erkut in the evaluation of Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts' sexuality education program for middle school students: Get Real. She worked with Dr. Lorraine Cordeiro on a qualitative needs assessment of Cambodian youth and emerging adults in Lowell, Massachusetts, and also to study the unique roles that Cambodian women play in navigating the immigration transition for themselves and their families in Lowell. She also worked with Dr. Nancy Marshall on secondary data analyses of national data on early childhood care influences and outcomes. Dr. Frye speaks Indonesian and studied Mandarin Chinese.
Dr. Frye was a methodologist at the centers and worked with Dr. Allison Tracy on funded projects and provided ad hoc support for study design and statistical analysis to other researchers at the centers. She focused chiefly on quantitative methods, including structural equation approaches, latent growth modeling, mixture modeling, multilevel modeling, and other types of advanced analyses.
Senior Scholar until 2020
Senior Scholar
Kristen Handricken served as Director of Open Circle program through early February 2009. Please contact Nancy MacKay or Nova Biro for information about the program: 781-283-2847.
Kristen L. Handricken has worked in the education, public health, and human service fields for the past 18 years in a variety of roles that span direct service provision, program coordination, administration, training, and consultation. She has founded and developed youth and family serving programs and initiatives in Quincy, Weymouth, Brockton, and Cambridge. As Co-Director of the Middle Grades Prevention Program for the Cambridge Public Schools, Kristen coordinated the district-wide integration and evaluation of social and emotional learning services for middle school students in Cambridge. A graduate of Bridgewater State College and Harvard University, she holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and a Specialized Master of Education in the development of socio-educational partnerships for equity and inclusion. Prior to joining the Wellesley Centers for Women, Kristen worked as a consultant, trainer, and facilitator dedicating herself to enhancing the power of organizations to better meet the needs of adults and children of all racial heritages, gender identities, and economic backgrounds. As a former Commissioner on the Board for the Status of Women in Cambridge she advocated for the protection of human and civil rights of women, children, and families in the city for almost a decade.
B.A., Elmira College
nmackay@wellesley[dot]edu \ LinkedIn
Link to CV
Leads programming at Open Circle, which equips elementary schools with evidence-based curriculum and training to improve school climate and teach children essential social and emotional skills
Nancy MacKay initially joined Open Circle in 1996 and as a trainer and a coach. She later became training director and served as Open Circle co-director from 2009 to 2017. She has since transitioned to the role of senior program manager. MacKay has been involved in education, training and development for over 30 years as a teacher, trainer and consultant. Along with her Open Circle experience and expertise as an elementary educator, MacKay has designed and implemented courses, workshops and seminars for businesses and nonprofit organizations focusing on the development leadership skills.
MacKay, N., May 2016. SEL Asset and Needs Assessment. SEL Alliance for Massachusetts Regional Conference. Bridgewater, MA.
MacKay, N. September 21-22, 2015. Exploring the Intersections of Social and Emotional Learning and Mindful Awareness/Contemplative Practice. One of 24 invited members to a convening of leaders in their respective field to explore teaching strategies and instructional approaches used in the educational fields of social and emotional learning and mindful awareness or contemplative practice. The 1440 Foundation and The Collaborative for Academic and Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), Chicago, IL.
Porche, M & MacKay, N. April, 2015. Collaboration to Enhance Whole School Social and Emotional Learning for Elementary Students. Roundtable paper presentation, American Education and Research Association (AERA) annual conference, Chicago, IL.
MacKay, N.M. & Biro, N.B. March 8, 2011. Open Circle’s Best Practices for Social and Emotional Learning. Presentation to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
MacKay, N.M. & Dunning, S. April 30, 2009. What’s Emotion Got to Do With It?: Linking Social & Emotional Development with Academic Success. Conference presentation, Massachusetts School Counselors Association (MASCA).
Partners shares the value of social and emotional learning with Open Circle. Bay State Banner. October 11, 2013.
Boston schools open doors to Open Circle. Boston.com. December 2, 2013.
Recent funding secured for Open Circle includes grants from NoVo Foundation, Templeton Foundation (in partnership with Greater Good Science Center), Partners HealthCare (in partnership with Boston Public Health Commision) and program fees from over 200 schools.
Porche, M., Grossman, J., Costello, D., Biro, N., MacKay, N., Rivers, S. April 2015. Collaboration to Enhance Whole School Social and Emotional Learning for Elementary Students. American Educational Research Association 2015 Annual Meeting.
Porche, M., Grossman, J., Biro, N., MacKay, N., & Rivers, S. September 4, 2014. Collaboration to Achieve Whole School SEL Across a Large, Urban District. Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness Fall 2014 Conference.
Co-authored several Open Circle publications, including the Open Circle Curriculum Grades K-5, Open Circle training manuals and assessment tools, Open Circle quarterly e-newsletters, and several white papers: Helping Children Deal with Traumatic Events, Open Circle and DESSA Alignment, Open and PBIS, Reinforcing SEL Schoolwide, SEL Best Practices.
Member, SEL Alliance for Massachusetts, 2013 to present.
Alumni, LeadBoston, Class of 1993.
Participant, The National SEED Project hosted at the Wellesley Centers for Women, 2015 to present.
This compilation of laws on gender equality and domestic violence from around the world will serve as a rich resource for gender-based law reform initiatives.
Sallie joined the Open Circle program in 1997 as a trainer and consultant. Since then, Sallie has developed a particular interest and expertise in the role that special area teachers play in the lives of schools and children. Whereas Open Circle's focus used to be primarily on grade-level teachers who teach the curriculum, they now involve specialists in almost all areas of the program. Sallie has also spent considerable time studying the dynamics of elementary school cafeterias - often the most challenging part of day for students and adults. An adjunct faculty member of Framingham State University, she oversees the two graduate courses offered by Open Circle.
Prior to joining the staff of Open Circle, Sallie had been the Director of Training and Associate Director of the Greater Boston Legal Services. Other endeavors include using outdoor challenges as part of the treatment for drug-involved adolescents; being a middle school counselor; and training middle school teachers. Sallie received her B.A. from Wellesley College and M.Ed. in Counseling from the School of Education at UMass-Amherst.
When not working with Open Circle, Sallie volunteers at her church, and several community social action groups. She and the rest of her family enjoy skiing and sailing in Maine whenever possible.
Wendy B. Surr has 25 years experience in the fields of early childhood and after school care, with a diverse background both in creating and shaping after school policy and action for communities and in evaluating the quality and effectiveness of after school programs and staff development initiatives.
For the past 10 years, Surr has directed or consulted numerous projects for a variety of organizations. As NIOST Evaluation Consultant to the Massachusetts Department of Education, she co-created an outcome-based evaluation system for MA DOE 21st CCLC grantees, including the development of the SAYO-youth outcome and APT program quality assessment tools currently in use by programs across the state.
Other research and evaluation projects include Evaluator for the City of Cambridge Leading for Quality Initiative, a multi-faceted quality improvement initiative involving over 40 Cambridge after school programs; Consultant to Taking the Lead, a national initiative designed to build the capacity and diversity of leadership in the field of early care and education; Co-Evaluator for Achieve Boston, a multi-year effort to pilot a training system and establish a Blue Print for a comprehensive, professional development system to serve school-age and youth workers in the City of Boston; Co-Evaluator for Boston 4Quality, a multi-year quality improvement initiative involving the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston, the Y.M.C.A. of Boston, Parents United for Child Care and the National Institute on Out-of-School Time; and Evaluation Consultant for San Jose 4Quality, a multi-site, multi-year quality improvement initiative in San Jose, CA. During this time Surr also consulted to the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, the Massachusetts School-Age Coalition, Plowshares Education Development Corporation, Early Childhood Associates, The Institute for Leadership and Career Initiatives at Wheelock College, and Work/Family Directions (WFD).
Other positions held by Surr include eight years as Executive Director of the Newton Child Care Commission & Fund, one of the first city-wide child care and after school initiatives in the country; Research Coordinator for a NIMH funded research project at Tufts University examining the effects of divorce on children; and Early Childhood Specialist for 20 school districts as part of the Massachusetts Department of Education Chapter 188 Initiative.
Surr holds a B.A. in Psychology from Bard College and an M.A. in Early Childhood Development from Tufts University.
Video: Wendy Surr and Ellen Gannett, M.Ed., explore the current issues surrounding expanded learning opportunities (ELOs) in this WCW video series. Surr and Gannett emphasize that afterschool programs and extended learning days should not focus on just more time in the day, but how that time is used and how well that time is used. Expanded learning opportunities offer a different kind of learning that can take advantage of different settings in the community and integrates both cognitive and social development in children. Click here to watch the videos.
Jim Vetter was Program Director of the Open Circle Program, based at the Wellesley Centers for Women until 2008. Since 1987, Open Circle has provided social competency curricula and training programs that have touched the lives over 300,000 students in public, private, parochial, urban, suburban, and rural schools in New England and New Jersey. Open Circle is recognized nationally as a science-based program with evidence of effectiveness.
Before joining Open Circle, Jim worked as a conflict resolution and violence prevention specialist, supporting schools and school systems in selecting, implementing, and sustaining science-based social development programs. He also served as Director of the statewide Suicide and Youth Violence Prevention Program of the Virginia Department of Health.
A 1981 graduate of Yale University, Vetter received a Masters in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is co-author of a recent article on the links between violence and suicide that appeared in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior.
Earlier in his career, Jim directed educational theater troupes and worked as a professional actor, mime, and magician.
Dr. Nancy Genero is an associate professor of psychology at Wellesley College where she teaches cultural psychology, culture & social identity, and introductory statistics. For the past fifteen years, she has explored psychological issues that pertain to the lives of diverse groups of women, girls, and their families.
Dr. Genero completed her doctoral training in social psychology at the University of Michigan (UM) in Ann Arbor in 1985. After working in the clinical studies unit of the department of psychiatry at UM for three years as a research investigator, she assumed a position at the Stone Center for Developmental Services and Studies, now a part of the Wellesley Centers for Women, as a research program director in 1988. That year marked the beginning of her research career on the relational aspects of the psychological development of women and girls. When she started her work in this area, the research literature was extremely limited and reliable research instruments on relational processes were virtually non-existent. Consequently, she published the first validated measure of mutual psychological development (Genero, Miller, Surrey, & Baldwin, 1992). This measure is now widely used in the field and was recently published in the Handbook of Family Measurement Techniques (Perlmutter, Touliatos, & Holden, 2001). With federal funding from the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health, she collaborated with colleagues at the Stone Center to study the relational aspects of depression in mothers of young children.
In 1993, Dr. Genero joined the faculty of the psychology department at Wellesley College where she began to incorporate theories from cultural psychology into her work. The idea that diverse cultural meanings profoundly impact the ways in which women and girls make sense of and adapt to psychological challenges made a lot of sense to her. At the same time, she discovered a growing literature on the negative effects of acculturation stress on identity development and mental health. Although studies called attention to the challenges of the acculturation process (e.g., discrimination and language barriers), few attempted to address how female adolescents make sense of their acculturation experiences and whether close relationships enhanced or diminished their ability to negotiate conflicting cultural demands. The discontinuities between traditional female roles and non-traditional mainstream American values can be a source of conflict between young girls and their families. Moreover, persistent cultural inconsistencies are likely to have serious negative developmental and mental health consequences for adolescents.
Dr. Genero received support for her work in this area from the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College and the Social Science Research Council. More recently, she received an award of a two-year small grant from the Brachman Hoffmann Fellowship Program at Wellesley College to conduct a community-based study of bicultural Hispanic and Brazilian seventh and eighth grade girls from the Framingham area. She conducted this study in collaboration with Elissa Koff, Ph.D.
In addition to her scholarly and professional research activities, Dr. Genero serves as the director of multicultural programs through the Office of the Dean of the College. In this capacity, she promotes faculty research on cultural topics and mentors students interested in conducting independent research in this area.
Senior Scholar
Research Associate, National Institute on Out-of-School Time
Patricia Jahoda Stahl was the Co-Director of Bringing Yourself to Work (BYTW) at the Wellesley Centers for Women until 2008, an innovative training program and book that stressed the importance of emotional intelligence, diversity and self-awareness when working in a care-giving environment. BYTW provided training nationally to after-school, school, early childhood and youth program staff. Additionally, Patricia provided training and keynote speeches at many national conferences.
Patricia has over 25 years experience in training, consulting, and developing innovative educational initiatives for children, adolescents and care providers. She holds a Master’s of Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education. In addition to her work at the Wellesley Centers for Women, Patricia founded Strategic Philanthropy, a consulting practice in which she assists organizations and foundations in identifying and planning their philanthropic programs.
Patricia has been the technical and program consultant for the Girls Action Initiative, a project with the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Charitable Foundation that funded 12 Massachusetts girls’ programs for three years. She also served as the Director of Adolescent Programs at the Boston Children's Museum, during which time she created a vocational development program that offered interactive work opportunities for adolescents in a museum setting.
Patricia’s publications include Bringing Yourself to Work: A guide to Successful Staff Development in After School Programs, 2003; Learning From Girls Action: Building Strengths and Saving Self-Esteem in Early Adolescence, 2000; and Growing Together: A Mutual Exchange, 1996.
Senior Scholar
Research Advisor
Depression Prevention Research Initiative
Senior Research Scientist and Economist
Women in the Workplace Research Initiative
Pam Alexander was a senior research scientist through September 2010 at the Wellesley Centers for Women, where she conducted research on gender-based violence. After getting her Bachelors from Wake Forest University, Dr. Alexander received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Emory University in 1980, was an assistant professor and director of the Psychological Services Center at the University of Memphis, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, and a senior research investigator at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Research on Youth and Social Policy.
Dr. Alexander’s research focused on family violence generally, with a particular emphasis on intimate partner violence. She was interested in the role that childhood trauma played in increasing the risk for both the experience and perpetration of intimate partner violence as well as child maltreatment. Her work on the development and evaluation of intervention programs for intimate partner violence was informed by attachment theory with its attention to affect regulation and implicit views of attachment relationships, by motivational interviewing with its emphasis on values and choices, and by mindfulness approaches with their focus on learning to recognize, tolerate and regulate emotions. She believed that taking into account both the intergenerational context of violence as well as the current context of the relationship was essential in understanding, preventing and eradicating gender-based violence.
Dr. Alexander’s research career originally began with a concentration on the long-term effects of incest. In 1986, she received funding by the National Institute on Mental Health to conduct a psychotherapy outcome study on the effectiveness of group therapy for adult female incest survivors. Given the inevitable overlap between different types of violence perpetrated within the family, she began to focus more on the intergenerational transmission of violence, including abusive parenting and the perpetration of and vulnerability to intimate partner violence, with an emphasis on the attachment relationships between parents and children and between intimate partners. Her research was based on clinical samples of men and women (ranging from batterers to battered women and incest survivors seeking services to parents at risk for child abuse) and samples of women recruited from the community (such as adult female incest survivors and mothers with young children). She evaluated both the U.S. Army’s and the U.S. Marines’ New Parent Support Program, a home visitation child abuse prevention program.
Two federally funded projects completed by Dr. Alexander consisted of the following. First, a project funded by the Centers for Disease Control examined the determinants and consequences of readiness to change in a sample of more than 1,500 batterers court-ordered to treatment. Second, a project funded by the National Institute of Justice compared the effectiveness of a stages-of-change/motivational interviewing (SOCMI) model of group therapy with standard batterer treatment for batterers court-ordered to treatment.
Dr. Hill is professor of social policy, law, and women's studies at Brandeis University. During the 2007-2008 academic year she served as a Senior Scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women and as a Newhouse Visiting Scholar at Wellesley College. Her work at Wellesley involved analyzing the nearly 25,000 pieces of correspondence she received in the wake of her testimony at the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for a project titled "Lessons in the Letters: Learning About Race and Gender From the Private Responses to the Clarence Thomas Confirmation Hearing." She opened the WCW fall 2007 Lunchtime Seminar Series with a presentation on this topic on October 4th at the Centers' Cheever House. Dr. Hill earned her J.D. from Yale University and her B.S. from Oklahoma State University. Her scholarly publications include:
"Choice, Social Structure, and Educational Policy." Race, Markets and Social Structures. 1st ed. Ed. Emma Coleman Jordan. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 2007 (forthcoming)
"The Embodiment of Equal Justice Under the Law." Nova Law Review 31. 2 (2007): 1-19. (forthcoming)
"What Difference Will Women Judges Make? Looking Once More at the "Woman Question"." Women and Leadership: The State of Play and Strategies for Change. 1st ed. Ed. Barbara Kellerman and Deborah Rhode. New York: Jossey-Boss, 2007. 1-29. (forthcoming)
"A History of Hollow Promises: How Choice Jurisprudence Fails to Achieve Educational Equality." Michigan Journal of Race & Law 12. 1 (2007): 107-159.
The Scholarly Legacy of A. Leon Higginbotham: Voice, Storytelling and Narrative. Rutgers Law Review, 2001.
At the Centers, Rachel worked on a wide variety of research and evaluation projects. She worked with United Way of Massachusetts Bay as an evaluator on an initiative to build partnerships between afterschool programs and schools. In addition, she worked with the State of Maine researching and writing technical assistance papers on afterschool issues, specifically focusing on inclusion efforts for special needs students. Rachel also focused her time on building a professional development infrastructure for afterschool and youth workers in the Boston area. She worked with a variety of Boston-based organizations and higher education institutions to pilot the first credential for school-age and youth workers in Boston.
Prior to joining Wellesley Centers for Women, Rachel held a legislative research position in Alexandria, Virginia, tracking state health care bills and presenting legislative reports to pharmaceutical companies. She also held a post at the Boston Globe conducting marketing research and designing surveys.
Cathy has worked with language impaired children in elementary schools in Needham and Wellesley, Massachusetts, as well as with adults in hospitals in Lynn, Massachusetts and New Haven, Connecticut. In her former career as a Speech and Language Therapist, her focus was on helping people develop strategies to compensate for weak language processing skills and to promote useful pragmatic social skills.
Her work in the field of pragmatic social skills led directly to developing a social competency curriculum for elementary school children. After many years working in the Wellesley Public Schools, Cathy joined the Open Circle Project in 1990, where she is currently its Consulting Director. In this role, she is a mentor and coach to the Open Circle consulting staff as well as the corps of dedicated teachers who make up the project’s Consulting Teacher groups. Cathy is also a member of the Open Circle training and consulting staff. Open Circle currently trains and consults to more than 500 teachers per year—that translates to touching the lives of thousands of students each year. Cathy is excited to be part of this wonderful project and to make a positive difference for children and the entire school community.
Senior Research Scientist
Work, Families, & Children Research Group
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