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 eight-year collaborative organizational change effort aimed at enhancing sensitivity to issues of race and gender.  Meg is on sabbatical for the 2011-2012 academic year.   During her sabbatical she will be a Resident Scholar at Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Research Center. Meg will also continue to work on CWW’s Healthy Diversity Project that focuses on staffing practices to promote diversity in the community health center workforce.  Additionally, she will be focused on writing up other CWW initiatives that focus on the dynamics of interdisciplinary collaborations. 

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

Mignon Duffy’s research focuses on the intersections of care work with gender, race, and class inequalities. In 2011, her book Making Care Count: Gender, Race and Paid Care Work was published by Rutgers University Press. In 2009, as part of an effort funded by the UMass President’s Office and co-sponsored by CWW, Duffy co-authored a report entitled “Counting on Care Work: Human Infrastructure in Massachusetts” (with Nancy Folbre and Randy Albelda). In 2011-2012, she will continue to work to publicize the findings of that report to policymakers and advocates as well as academic audiences. In addition, Duffy is engaged in a new project examining narratives of success in American Idol. While this may seem at first glance far removed from her previous work (!) the project is dealing with themes of individualism and collectivism, cultural tropes which are critical to understanding the devaluation of care in society.

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 who has studied work-related musculoskeletal disorders in a wide range of jobs from clerical work to construction. She is also interested in the role of working conditions in creating 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 integrate worksite health promotion with occupational health interventions. One CPH-NEW project has demonstrated the health benefits and cost-effectiveness of a safe resident handling program for reducing low back injuries among workers (almost 90% female) in a large chain of nursing homes.  The study is also examining a range of stressors in this work environment, from family-work imbalance to being assaulted by residents to regular night shift work. The findings include the important influences that these stressors have on health behaviors such as smoking, getting regular exercise and sufficient sleep.

Paula Rayman, Ph.D. 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 1960s and younger scholars who began their work in the 1990s. 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 UMass Medical School on a project to support women's retention and promotion.

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CWW Associates

Deina Abdelkader
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science

Deina Abdelkader is a Comparativist and International Relations specialist. Her scholarly interests and research focus on the Middle East and North Africa, Comparative Democratization in the Muslim World, Islamic Activism, and the Role of Muslim Women in Religious Interpretation.  She is the author of Social Justice in Islam (2000) and Islamic Activists: The Anti-Enlightenment Democrats (Pluto Press, May 2011).  Deina is a member of several professional associations: The Middle East Studies Association, The Mediterranean Studies Association, and the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, The American Political Science Association, The Women’s Caucus at the American Political Science Association (APSA), and The Northeastern Political Science Association. She attended and presented in Conferences in each of those professional associations mostly in Europe, North America, South America, and Africa.  Abdelkader is also one of two women on the Islamic Jurisprudential Council of North America (Fiqh Council of North America).

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 2011-2012, Monica will continue to explore the nature of long term socio-economic outcomes experienced by workers injured on the job. She will use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to study first how often occupational injuries and diseases do not result in workers’ compensation claims; second, the potential relationship between the experience of an occupational injury and the likelihood of filing for personal bankruptcy; and finally, the effect of occupational injuries on different family members’ well being. In all these studies she is planning to explore whether results vary depending on the gender of the decision maker (the injured worker, or the head of the household). 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 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

Andrew 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 to intimate choices, work-family integration, and life in the so-called "third age" of the immediate post-retirement years.  During the 2011-12 academic year, he will participate in CWW’s Emerging Scholars program, researching “Exercise, Social Supports, and Sense of Community among Community-Dwelling Seniors.” The overall purpose of this action research project is to develop a wellness program to promote physical health, social well-being, and sense of community among under-served seniors. Second, he will serve as one of the principal organizers for “Intergenerational Month” in October at the Lowell Senior Center. Scheduled activities include three intergenerational conversations/focus groups that will involve high school, college, and graduate students, and the theme of intergenerational relations will tie together Dr. Hostetler’s research, teaching, and service for the 2011-12 academic year. Finally, he will begin work on the project, “Meaningful Work and the Meaning of Work after Retirement.”

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

Sarah Kuhn’s scholarship focuses on engaging women and other under-represented 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 better pedagogy and a focus on the purposes to which technology can be put is more likely to attract and retain women students. Sarah is spending 2011-201 working on three projects: 1) An exploration of “crocheted hyperbolic planes,” on which she led a brief workshop at the CWW Forum in 2011, as an ‘evocative object’ for exploring gender in math, computing, and culture, 2)a book manuscript tentatively titled “Thinking with Things” on how awareness of embodied cognition and learning can improve teaching and learning in higher education and 3) a proposal to the National Science Foundation on using the fiber arts across cultures to engage underrepresented students and teach STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) concepts.

Saira Latif, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Management

Saira Latif’s primary focus of research is in the area of finance and accounting. As part of a bigger project looking at CEO motives for earnings management at different stages in their careers, she will also look at the differences between male and female CEOs in that regard. The earnings management literature in finance and accounting looks at the differences in reported versus true underlying earnings of a firm, in particular those which are intentionally created by the management. The purpose of this is to study the motives behind such actions and analyze their consequences for the different stakeholders of the firm (shareholders, creditors, management, tax collectors, etc.). Existing studies in this area have shown that women manipulate earnings less and my study takes this analysis one step further and connects the CEO motives to their respective career goals.

Marlowe Miller
Professor, Department of English

Professor Marlowe Miller specializes in modernist literature, with a specific focus on modernist women writers.  She also does research and teaching in contemporary women’s writing and composition and rhetoric.  In addition to her text, Masterpieces of British Modernism, Professor Miller has published articles on Virginia Woolf, contemporary women writers like Sherley Anne Williams and Maxine Hong Kingston, and on the teaching of literature and writing.  During the 2011-12 academic year, Professor Miller will explore the way domestic interiors figure in the writing of modernist women writers from Elizabeth Bowen to Virginia Woolf.  Marlowe is particularly interested in the representation and interrogation of domestic space in the light of studies in architectural history and cultural anthropology, which reveal the political significance of this contested space.  The role of the domestic interior plays in the works of numerous modernist women writers reflects important historical and gendered interrogations of Gaston Bachelard’s subtle and yet profound revelation that “the house is a nest for dreaming, a shelter for imagining.”  Through her CWW affiliation, Marlowe is planning to enrich her research with the insights and expertise offered by an interdisciplinary community of scholars.

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

Cheryl Najarian Souza’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.

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. Her current project is focused on using personal narratives to investigate the way children of immigrants between the ages of 4 and 10 make sense of their life experiences and understand their position in their contexts (home, day care, and neighborhood). Lowell, MA has long been a destination city for immigrants and refugees, with twice the national rate (25%) of its population being foreign-born. Jana’s present project aims to investigate the life stories of members of the second largest and fastest-growing immigrant groups in Lowell: Latino.  Hispanic populations grew the fastest of all ethnic/racial groups according to the recent census and have growth rate between 2000 and 2010 at about 43%.  There are now about 50 million Hispanics in US, representing 16% of the total US population.  Thus, this project will focus on narrative life stories of children of Spanish-speaking immigrants who face many challenges ranging from racial and legal status discrimination to language barriers and separation issues, resulting in emotional and educational difficulties.

Robin Toof, M.A. Co-Director, Center for Family, Work & Community

Robin Toof’s fields of expertise are community partnerships and engagement, program evaluation and grant writing. She is the Co-Director of UMass Lowell’s Center for Family, Work and Community which develops research and programmatic partnerships between the university and the community. Currently, she is working on the CWW Healthy Diversity project. The goal of this study is to better understand the unique challenges that Community Health Centers face in establishing and maintaining workplace practices that promote respectful integration of staff members from diverse racial and ethnic communities. The research will result in policy and practice recommendations for community health centers and policy makers. As a member of the research team, Robin’s role in this study is to provide input on the research design including survey and interview protocols, attend stakeholder meetings, conduct interviews as needed, contribute to the development of recommendations and report writing. Additionally, Robin will continue her participation in CWW’s Gathering at the Well forum planning committee. This annual forum promotes dialogue on issues of women and work, raising awareness and creating solutions, addressing cutting-edge issues related to healthy workplaces for women. This year’s forum will focus on the role of feminism in the 21st century.

Nellie Tran, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Nellie Tran’s academic background is in community psychology with a concentration on minority youth in the educational context. She is currently working with a team to write a National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Grant (ADVANCE: IT).  The ADVANCE: IT grant focuses on promoting the advancement of academic women within the science, technology, engineering, and math fields (STEM).  As part of this grant, she is developing a research project aimed at understanding the indirect effect of gender microaggressions on academic women’s psychological health and well-being, academic productivity, and sense of belonging to their department and broader academic field.  The ADVANCE: IT grant is being developed collaboratively between the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the University of Massachusetts Worcester.  Nellie expects that this project will include two studies that build on one another.  In Study 1, she will develop a microaggression scale that measures exposure to gender microaggressions.  Study 2 will use the gender microaggression scale created in Study 1 to measure the impact of exposure to gender microaggressions on psychological health and well-being, work productivity, and connection with one’s work community. 

Jenifer Whitten-Woodring, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science

Jenifer Whitten-Woodring’s primary research agenda is at the intersection of international relations, political communication and comparative politics. In particular, she studies the role of media in the repression-protest nexus and compares the ability of independent media to hold government accountable in regards to human rights—including women’s rights—across a range of regime types.   The project that Jenifer is currently developing centers on the role of media in promoting women’s economic, social and political rights.  The project is focused on cultural, economic and political inequities and challenges conventional foreign policies aimed at addressing these issues. A preliminary paper for this project earned an honorable mention in the Alexander George Paper Competition from the Foreign Policy Analysis Section of the International Studies Association in March of 2011.

Yi Yang, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Yi Yang’s primary research interests focus on technology-oriented entrepreneurship and strategy issues, including corporate venturing, venture capital, technology transfer and R&D collaboration.  Although most of her extant research projects were conducted in the setting of corporations, she has extended her research to individual entrepreneurs.  In collaboration with her colleagues at the College of Management, she started a research project assessing the value of the network relationships established among inventors, university researchers, venture capitalists and others as they participate in commercialization activities associated with the M2D2 incubator. This research project was awarded the 2009-2010 Research & Scholarship Grant of UMass Lowell.  The success of this research project has led Yi to explore more areas related to social network and entrepreneur success.  As part of her association with the Center for Women & Work, Yi will be examining how female entrepreneurs may behave differently in the social network activities as they explore opportunities to promote new business ventures compared to male entrepreneurs. As a researcher with an international background, Yi is also interested in entrepreneurs’ social network activities in different culture backgrounds. 

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