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. She has recently published a book entitled Workplace Chemistry: Promoting Diversity through Organizational Change (University Press of New England), which 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 organizations. Meg's past research has focused on sexual harassment, collaboration among diverse constituencies, and empowerment issues of underrepresented groups in community and organizational settings.

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's research has focused for a long time on work-related musculoskeletal disorders, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and low back pain, in a wide range of job settings, from clerical work to construction. She has studied the effectiveness of ergonomic intervention programs and joint labor-management health and safety committees, and the role of working conditions in the development of gender and socioeconomic health disparities. CPH-NEW, a NIOSH Center for Excellence to Promote a Healthier Workforce, is a research-to-practice program to implement and evaluate several models for integrating worksite health promotion with occupational health interventions. The Center's projects emphasize the value of worker involvement in program development and seek to improve cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and mental health. One CPH-NEW research project is evaluating the effects of both a lifting reduction program and wellness activities in a group of nursing homes. Preliminary findings include that workers with less control over their work schedules were less likely to get regular exercise, while psychological stress and recent physical assault at work were related to cigarette smoking. The lifting reduction program led to a reduction in perceived physical load and in musculoskeletal symptoms, and a reduction in workers' compensation claims leading to a total annualized net savings to the company of $1.08 million.

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.

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CWW Associates

Rachel DeMotts, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Regional Economic and Social Development

Rachel DeMotts' research focuses on African political ecology, particularly the social impacts of conservation, women's participation in community conservation, transboundary natural resource management, and linkages between HIV/AIDS and the environment. Her current project examines the ways in which women's livelihoods are disproportionately affected by living with wildlife (especially elephants) in rural Botswana and Namibia. While state governments and community-based conservation projects have sought to offer compensation for damage caused to crops by wildlife, it is insufficient to replace losses and often only accessible to elites. This means that female-headed households have to bear the additional burdens of replacing lost crops, being unable to apply for compensation because of distance and transport problems, encountering wildlife while working in their fields, and lacking additional household income to create stability and make up for possible losses. Rachel's project thus seeks to disaggregate ideas about who is most affected by wildlife damage, and engender a fuller understanding of the costs of living with wildlife.

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

Mignon Duffy's scholarly interests include the intersections of gender, race, and class, labor market inequalities, care work, families, and education. The central theme of her research is focused on care work, which closely links her interest in gender inequality with work. In 2008-09, Mignon will be focusing her energies on two major projects. The first is completing a book manuscript with the working title Making Care Count: Understanding Gender, Race, and Care Work in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. This book is based on an analysis of Census data and other historical sources to document the evolution of paid care work over the course of the twentieth century. The second project is a policy focused research effort funded by the President's Office Creative Economies Initiatives Fund. This project, "Taking Care: The Costs and Contributions of Care Work in Massachusetts", is a collaboration with UMass Boston and UMass Amherst that will begin to document the size and scope of the care sector at a state level.

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 earnings losses experienced by male and female injured workers. During the academic year 2008-09, Monica will be on sabbatical. She is planning to further explore the nature of long-term socioeconomic 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 relationship between occupational injuries and personal bankruptcy. She will explore whether these phenomena differ by gender. She is also studying the effect that an occupational accident has on spouses' and children's employment and labor force participation. She is also exploring the effect of mothers' injuries on children's 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. During the 07-08 academic year, in addition to pursuing these academic interests, she is developing a new graduate certificate in Diversity in the Workplace in conjunction with Meg Bond to be co-sponsored by CWW. The certificate will provide future organizational 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 emphasizes the role of individual choice and self-determination in life-course development – and how these dynamics are shaped by ecological resources and constraints. . He will be on sabbatical Fall 2008, during which time he will focus on "Lowell Seniors Count," a university-community partnership involving a census and well-being assessment of all adults 60 and over in Lowell. The project is funded by grants from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Massachusetts Partnership for Healthy Communities. During the 2008-09 academic year he will also continue his scholarly work on the limits of self-determination as it relates to intimate choices, work-family integration, and life in the so-called "third age" of the immediate post-retirement years. He will also carry on in his role as the editor of the CWW Working Paper Series. Finally, he will continue work on a co-edited volume on carework that brings together the work of several CWW Associates.

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.

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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