Research Scientist
Black Girls and STEM Education Research Initiative
Senior Scholar
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.
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