Leadership Team & CWW Associates

Leadership Team
CWW Associates

Leadership Team

Meg A. Bond, Ph.D. Director, Center for Women and Work Professor, Department of Psychology

Meg A. Bond's work addresses the interrelationships among issues of diversity, empowerment, and organizational dynamics. Meg's past research has focused on sexual harassment, collaboration among diverse constituencies, and empowerment issues of underrepresented groups in community and organizational settings. Her book entitled Workplace Chemistry: Promoting Diversity through Organizational Change ( University Press of New England) describes an organizational change effort aimed at enhancing sensitivity to issues of race and gender, based on an 8-year collaborative case study with a regional production firm. She is currently extending her diversity-related organizational development into work with community agencies. The "Healthy Diversity Project," developed in collaboration with Laura Punnett (Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace) and Robin Toof (Center for Family, Work and Community), aims to identify diversity-related organization development needs as well as best practices adopted by community-based organzations. A new project that Meg is leading in 2009-2010 is the promotion and evaluation of a collaborative mentoring model at UMass Lowell, called Interdisciplinary Exchange and Advancement (IDEA) Communities.

Laura Punnett, Sc.D. CWW Senior Associate Professor, Department of Work Environment Director, Center for Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW)

Laura Punnett is an epidemiologist with expertise in work-related musculoskeletal disorders, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and low back pain, in a wide range of jobs from clerical work to construction. She has also studied the effectiveness of ergonomics interventions and other workplace health programs, as well as what is the role of working conditions in the creation of gender and socioeconomic health disparities. She is Co-Director of the Center to Promote Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW), a research-to-practice initiative to implement and evlauate several models for integrating worksite health promotion with occupaitonal health interventions. The Center puts special emphasis on cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and mental health and on the value of worker involvement in program design. For example, one of these projects evaulates both a lifting reduction program and wellness activities at nursing homes. Preliminary findings show that workers with less control over thier work schedules are less likley to get regular exercise, while current cigarette smoking is higher in those with more psychological stress and recent physical assaults at work.

Jean L. Pyle, Ph.D. CWW Senior Associate Professor Emerita, Department of Regional Economic and Social Development

Jean L. Pyle is an economist specializing in the overlapping areas of labor, economic development, and policy, with particular focus on gender issues. In 2008-2009 she will address "Global Economic Change and the Migration of Asian Women: What Are the Issues?" Multiple trends associated with globalization have resulted in increased migration of Asian women for work over the past few decades. This migration, both internal and international, challenges the goals of national governments, involving them in difficult policy dilemmas. On the one hand, governments seek to find viable employment for their citizens (this often involves strategies that promote emigration) which increases foreign exchange reserves. On the other hand, they are ethically pressed to ensure the well-being of their citizens abroad. These dilemmas have been augmented by recent adverse global economic trends. This research will provide an overview of the issues from multi-level points of view, from that of the individual, her household, and her community to the region, nation, and the international arena.

Paula Rayman, Ph.D. CWW Senior Associate Professor, Department of Regional Economic and Social Development

Paula Rayman is a scholar in the field of work organization, labor, and public policy. Paula received a Senior Fulbright Scholar award in spring 2008 for her project Beyond Coexistence: Israeli-Arab-Jewish Relations based at the University of Haifa, Israel. She will continue to work on this conflict-resolution endeavor as part of an international team of researchers, businesses, NGOs, and government leaders. Under her leadership, the Center for Women & Work sponsored Project Working WISE to advance the prospects for women in science and technology. The heart of this National Science Foundation-funded initiative was a conference that gathered an intergenerational and interdisciplinary community of racially and ethnically diverse scholars to establish a research agenda about workplace factors associated with women's success in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). This working conference brought together members of two primary cohorts who have done research on women and science: scholars whose research emerged in the 1960's and younger scholars who began their work in the 1990's. Project Working WISE is currently focused on disseminating the key lessons from the conference. Paula is collaborating with Meg Bond and Maria Julia Brunette (Department of Work Environment) as Co-Principal Investigators. She is also co-representing the UMass Lowell campus with Professor Julie Chen on an inter-UMass campus NSF Advance proposal development and serving as a consultant to the UMas Medical School on a project to support women's retention and promotion.

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CWW Associates

Judith Davidson, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education

Judith Davidson's scholarly interests focus on creativity tools in qualitative research. As a qualitative research methodologist, she has long been interested in the use of qualitative data analysis software tools- their structure and applications. Her recent co-authored book, Research Design for Qualitative Software Users (DiGregorio & Davidson, 2008), presents a meta-theory for understanding these tools in the context of qualitative research projects from across multiple disciplines. She is currently working on an overview of changes in this field with a focus on the shift from to Web 2.0/3.0 tool sfor the fourth edition of the Handbook on Qualitative Inquiry (Denzin & Lincoln, 2010). Her interest in qualitative research and its tools has recently led her away from technology and into the thickets of arts-based research and autoethnography. The project she will undertake at CWW blends these interests as she uses qualitative research software to conduct an intense examination of two years of her own journal entries in order to better understand her discernment processes as a woman in higher education. She looks forward to drawing upon the resourcs of the CWW scholars to deepend the feminist perspectives of this work. In this work, as in her earlier work, Davidson seeks to expand the creative possibilities of qualitative research methodology, while building new theoretical resources in the field.

Mignon Duffy, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

Mignon Duffy is focusing her attention on two major projects in the 2009-2010 year. She is finishing a book manuscript entitled Intimate Labors: A History of Gender, Race and Paid Care Work, based on research she has been working on over a number of years about paid care workers in the twentieth century. She is also working in collaboration with Nancy Folbre (UMass Amherst) and Randy Albelda (UMass Boston) to finish a report on the care sector in Massachusetts, an effort funded by the UMass President's Office Creative Economies Fund. They will be releasing the report and hosting several public events to discuss the findings in the Fall of 2009.

Monica Galizzi, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Department of Economics

Monica Galizzi's field of specialization is labor economics. She also has interests in the areas of health and behavioral economics, and in international differences of labor market outcomes. Her research has focused on labor mobility and on the socioeconomic outcomes of occupational injuries. She has written on the role played by wages, relative status, and career perspectives in explaining gender differences in labor market attachment. She has also published on the different earning losses experienced by male and female injured workers. During the academic year 2009-2010, Monica will continue to further explore the nature of long term socio-economic outcomes experienced by women injured on the job. She will use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to study patterns of recurrent injuries and the relationshpi between occupaitonla injuries and personal bankruptcy. She will explore whether these phenomena differ by gender. She is also studying the effer that an occupational accident has on spouses' and childrens' employment and labor force participation. She is also exploring the effect of mothers' injuries on childrens' education and mental well being. Through her CWW affiliation, Monica is planning to enrich her research with the insights and expertise offered by an interdisciplinary community of scholars.

Michelle Haynes, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Michelle Haynes' research focuses on how stereotyping processes contribute to the obstacles women and minorities face in their climb up the organizational ladder. Her current program of research investigates the extent to which the use of teams – an ever-popular organizational practice -- may exacerbate the appraisal biases women and minorities experience in the work domain. A secondary program of research investigates the extent to which individuals' construal of affirmative action policies (AAP) impacts attitudes towards both the policy and the beneficiaries of AAPs. In addition to pursing these academic interests, she is the coordinator of a new graduate certificate in Diversity in the Workplace, which is co-sponsored by the CWW. The certificate provides future organzational leaders with much-needed tools and skills in managing the complexities of the increasingly diverse workplace.

Andrew Hostetler, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Andy Hostetler's research broadly focuses on the role of individual choice in the life course, and on the limits of self-determination as it relates intimate choices, work-family integration, and life in the so-called "third age" of the immediate post-retirement years. During the 2009-2010 academic year, he will complete work on "Lowell Seniors Count," a census and well-being assessment of all adults 60 and over in Lowell funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Massachusetts Partnership for Healthy Communities, and he will seek funding for a follow-up study of intergenerational relationships and health disparities among Cambodian seniors. He will also work with other CWW associaties to develop a project on aging workers and the psychosocial work environment. Finally, he will be involved in the planning of the 2010 CWW Forum on women, work, and aging, and he will carry on in his role as the editor of the CWW Working Paper Series.

Sarah Kuhn, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Department of Regional Economic and Social Development

Sarah Kuhn’s scholarship focuses on engaging women and other underrepresented groups in learning about real world challenges that require a combination of social and technical know-how. The literature on undergraduate technology education suggests that women are disproportionately discouraged by poor teaching methods, and that a focus on the purposes to which technology can be put is more likely to attract and retain women students. Accordingly, Sarah is designing, teaching, and evaluating a new undergraduate course, Designing the Future World. She will continue working on building the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Design as a space that supports breakthrough teaching, particularly of women and first generation college students. She will also collaborate with faculty in the Computer Science Department and the Art Department on a National Science Foundation project to recast the undergraduate CS curriculum in more women-friendly ways.

Cheryl Najarian, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

Cheryl Najarian's areas of expertise include disability studies, gender, work and family, and qualitative research methods. She is especially interested in engaging in an intersectional analysis, which includes looking at social phenomena while considering race, class, gender, and ability. Having recently completed her book, "Between Worlds:" Deaf Women, Work, and Intersections of Gender and Ability (Routledge, 2006), she has begun data collection and analysis on her new research topic regarding the work and family lives of politicians. In this project, "The Public and Private Lives of Politicians: Negotiating Work, Family, and Public Policies," she is exploring how both men and women politicians experience their lives as public officials and how they negotiate this experience with their private family lives. Through the use of interviews and observations of respondents, she is investigating how these individuals create, manage, implement, and use public policies. As with her previous research, she is exploring this topic while using sociological, gender studies, and disability studies frameworks.

Katherine Rosa, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing

Katherine Rosa is a family nurse practitioner and nurse scientist with expertise in women's health, families, chronic illness, and healing. Her program of research focuses on how people respond to important relationships and events in their lives, from the perspective of health and healing. Currently, she is investigating the life experiences of pregnant Cambodian women living in Lowell. Her work seeks to understand the values, meanings, and perceptions which influence their health choices and actions. Pregnant Cambodian women and their babies are at increased risk for health problems due to language barriers, distinctive cultural traditions, and lack of knowledge about Western prenatal care. In addition, one particular area of concern in Lowell is their late entry to prenatal care, a complex phenomenon related to individual and environmental factors such as age of the mother, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, patient-provider relationship, and ability to access health care information. Through her work at CWW, Katherine will explore how young Cambodian American women work to create new and expanding families and its implications for individual, family, and community health.

Jana Sladkova, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Jana Sladkova researches various aspects of migration experiences. Her focus to date has centered on Honduran unauthorized migration. In her upcoming research, she plans to investigate the transnational parenting experience of migrants whose families have been separated due to global and local economic inequalities. She plans to explore how migrant mothers and fathers who are in the United States without authorization deal with childcare work across national borders. This will include investigating how they navigate work in the United States to provide for their own families' care. On the other side of the transnational family, she will research how the children interpret and deal with their parents' care from far away. She will use interviews and observations of members of transnational families to deepen our understanding of the increasingly common trans-border family care. In addition, Jana received a small grant to investigate how the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) workplace raids have impacted immigrant families and communities in Lowell. She will interview members of families whose members were retained and/or deported after a workplace raid.

Sharon Wasco, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Sharon Wasco's research looks at the personal and organizational resources that enable women who provide services to rape victims to persist in their work, despite the high levels of stress, vicarious trauma, and burnout that have been documented in this and other helping professions. Sharon is developing a program of community-based research that builds on her previous explorations of emotional reactions of rape victim advocates to the difficult nature of their work and the effect of organizational support on their self-care strategies as well as incorporating current innovations in the field of sexual assault service delivery. By bringing together caregivers from multiple systems (e.g., medical practitioners, forensic examiners, detectives, prosecutors, rape victim advocates, community members), both Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) programs and community conferencing/restorative justice programs aim to coordinate community services for rape survivors in safe, empowering settings. Sharon is examining the organizational factors, inter-organizational linkages and community resources needed to implement these innovative models of care, as well as the impact such programs have on participants – givers as well as recipients of care/services.

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