Biographies of FWI Officers and Staff

•  Ellen Galinsky, President and Co-Founder
•  James (Terry) T. Bond, Senior Advisor
•  Kerstin Aumann, Senior Research Associate
•  Alanna Beckman, Program Associate
•  John Boose, Art Director
•  Carol J. Bryce-Buchanan, Director of Development
•  Marijata C. Daniel-Echols, Senior Director of Education, Families, and Communities
•  Marline Griffith, Publications, FWI Speaks and Operations Coordinator
•  Leni Kirschenbaum, Program Associate
•  Tony Kolasa, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary
•  Kenneth Matos, Senior Director of Employment Research and Practice
•  Barbara Norcia-Broms, Development Associate
•  Kelly Sakai, Program Manager
•  Tyler Wigton, Program Manager
•  Myrna M.H. Woods, Manager, Finance and HR Administration

Ellen Galinsky, President and Co-Founder of Families and Work Institute (FWI), helped establish the field of work and family life while at Bank Street College of Education, where she was on the faculty for twenty-five years. Her more than forty-five books and reports include the highly acclaimed Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs, Ask The Children and the now classic The Six Stages of Parenthood. She has published over 125 articles in academic journals, books and magazines.

At the Institute, Ms. Galinsky co-directs the National Study of the Changing Workforce, the most comprehensive nationally representative study of the U.S. workforce—updated every five years and originally conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor in the 1977. She also co-directs When Work Works, a project on workplace flexibility and effectiveness first funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that has produced a series of research papers, and has launched the Sloan Awards as well as conducted the National Study of Employers, a nationally representative study that has tracked trends in employment benefits, policies and practices since 1998. Information from FWI’s research has been reported in the media more than three times a day since January 2010. In 2011, the Society for Human Resource Management and the Families and Work Institute formed a ground-breaking, multi-year partnership that takes When Work Works out to businesses around the country.

At FWI, Mind in the Making projects include professional development for early childhood educators, interactive learning opportunities for families, 0 – 8 systems building within the Community Schools context, a video series that highlights cutting edge early childhood research, the development of materials for pediatricians, and small grants to diverse learning community partners. Mind in the Making has had more than 990 million media impressions since April 2010.

A leading authority on work family issues, Ms. Galinsky was a presenter at the 2000 White House Conference on Teenagers and the 1997 White House Conference on Child Care. She was a planner and participant at the March 2010 White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility and worked with the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor on the Regional Forums on flexibility that continued the work of the White House Forum. She served as the elected President of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the largest professional group of early childhood educators.

Ellen Galinsky is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2004 Distinguished Achievement Award from Vassar College. She was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources in 2005. A popular keynote speaker, she appears regularly at national conferences, on television and in the media, including the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, World News Tonight and Oprah.

Ms. Galinsky holds a Master of Science degree in Child Development/Education from Bank Street College of Education, a Bachelor of Arts degree in Child Study from Vassar College and numerous honorary doctoral degrees.

Ms. Galinsky is also a photographer. The latest shows of her photography were at the New York Hall of Science (2006 and 2012), UMA Gallery in New York City (2007), RiverWinds Gallery in Beacon, New York (2008), GaGa in Rockland County, New York (2009) and Upstream Gallery in Dobbs Ferry, New York (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012).

Ellen Galinsky is married to artist Norman Galinsky, and they are the parents of two grown children: Philip, an ethnomusicologist and founder-director of Samba New York—an inspiring new performance group—and Lara, Senior Vice President at Echoing Green. Since 1987, Echoing Green has provided seed funding to more than 500 social entrepreneurs with bold ideas for social change to launch groundbreaking organizations around the world.

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Terry Bond is Senior Advisor at Families and Work Institute. In addition to providing technical advice on research design and data analysis to all major research projects of the Institute, he has day-to-day responsibility for the Institute's work life research program. Included in this area are the National Study of the Changing Workforce and the National Study of Employers . Every five years, the former surveys nationally representative samples of employees and the latter surveys nationally representative samples of employers.

Before joining Families and Work Institute, Mr. Bond was Deputy Director of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University where he helped develop the program work of the new center, including public policy analysis and field-based research concerned with maternal and child health, early care and education, service integration, welfare reform, and the demographics of child and family poverty. Prior to joining the Center at Columbia University, he was founding Director of the National Council of Jewish Women's Center for the Child, where he developed and managed research and action projects focused on work-family issues, family child care, child welfare, and parenting education. Before joining the Center for the Child, he was Director of Research at the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, where he was involved in longitudinal research on the Perry Preschool Project, Head Start, and other early childhood programs for economically disadvantaged children, as well as applied research related to special-needs children, family support programs, and child and family literacy.

Mr. Bond has shared the authorship of numerous FWI publications including Youth and Employment: What Do Young People Expect From the World of Work? , the 2005 National Study of Employers , the 2002 and the 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce , Beyond the Parental Leave Debate: The Impact of Laws in Four States, "The Effects of Childbearing on Women's Employment" in Parental Leave and Productivity, and The Changing Workforce: Highlights of the 1992 National Study. Other recent publications for which he had joint or sole authorship include "Single parents in the wage and salaried labor force" in the American Compensation Association Journal, "Work and family: The experiences of mothers and fathers in the U.S. labor force" in The American Woman 1996-97, "Parents at work: Work-family conflict stress, and coping" in Children, Families, and Stress, and three reports written in November 2006 for The Supporting Work Project.

Terry Bond completed both his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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Kerstin Aumann, Ph.D., is Senior Research Associate at Families and Work Institute. She conducts research on a wide range of workforce and workplace issues, including work-life fit, workplace effectiveness, employee health, and the impact of gender and generation at home and at work. Her responsibilities include identifying and analyzing issues and trends based on the National Study of the Changing Workforce, a large nationally representative survey of U.S. workers conducted by Families and Work Institute every five years.

Dr. Aumann has applied her expertise in organizational psychology, workforce diversity and talent management to her research, teaching and consulting experience in the U.S. and Europe. Prior to joining FWI, she worked for the Global Talent Research Group at Goldman Sachs, where she developed and implemented research projects related to improving the firm’s human capital management processes. She also worked in the Change Communication Group at Burson-Marsteller, a global communication consultancy.

Dr. Aumann has taught graduate courses in organizational psychology and organizational behavior at Columbia University. She has published her dissertation research on the impact of person-organization fit on expatriate employees, and co-authored several book chapters and research papers on person-organization fit, workplace diversity and cross-cultural management.

She completed her undergraduate work in Learning and Organizational Change and International Studies magna cum laude at Northwestern University, and received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Social-Organizational Psychology at Columbia University.

In her free time, Dr. Aumann is a rabbit rescue volunteer at a New York City animal shelter. She is also a licensed educator for the New York City House Rabbit Society.

Born and raised in Germany, Kerstin Aumann lives in New York City with her husband, Victor, and several pet rabbits.

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As Program Associate for Families and Work Institute, Ms. Beckman works with program teams to develop and implement research projects and execute project goals. Ms. Beckman is a principal member on FWI’s School-Based Health Care Project, a research initiative on the financial sustainability and nationwide expansion of school-based health centers (SBHCs), funded by the James and Judith K. Dimon Foundation. Project efforts include in-depth case studies on eight exemplary centers throughout the country.

Ms. Beckman participated in the design and delivery of survey research tools. She is responsible for managing partner relationships, contracts and correspondence, and currently helps guide project team efforts in conducting data collection and analysis.

In addition, Ms. Beckman undertakes a number of cross-project initiatives such as the development of funding proposals and various prospects for expansion. She also works with the When Work Works project team in developing and enhancing the program’s website and social media presence.

Prior to joining the Institute, Ms. Beckman worked as both an Educational Therapist for educational consulting firm Freudigman & Billings, and a Consultant for international charity Keep A Child Alive. Ms. Beckman received a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, with a concentration in Law and Society, from Cornell University in 2008.

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John Boose is the Art Director at Families and Work Institute. He designs, formats and oversees the printing of all FWI materials. He also designs, builds and manages the Institute’s Web sites. He has been with the Institute for over ten years.

Mr. Boose also does freelance graphic design, is a musician and received a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Connecticut College.

John Boose is originally from New York City and currently resides there with his girlfriend, Erin, and their son, Hudson.

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Carol Bryce-Buchanan is the Director of Development at Families and Work Institute, and oversees FWI's Corporate Leadership Circle (CLC), Board of Directors and all grants, contracts and contributions. She designs the CLC Conference Calls and Briefings and maintains ongoing relationships with over 50 Fortune 500 and 1,000 companies. Ms. Bryce-Buchanan has a special interest in women’s leadership in business. She is part of the team that developed the work life curriculum for the inaugural Ms. Foundation "Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day," co-produced FWI publication “Lessons in Leadership: A Book of Quotes” and presents and gives keynote addresses on FWI’s behalf in the U.S. and Canada. Recently she was asked to be part of an international expert resource group helping the United Nations further their workplace flexibility and women’s initiatives. Along with Lois Backon, she is responsible for FWI's signature annual event, the Work Life Legacy Award, which documents the history of the work life movement and honors those who have made extraordinary contributions to its development.

Prior to joining FWI in 1999, Ms. Bryce-Buchanan worked in Development in arts and educational institutions and held research and senior administrative positions at HealthMed, Yale University Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, New York Medical College, The Montreal General Hospital and The Montreal Children's Hospital. She currently co-chairs the Advisory Council of New York Live Arts, a merger of Dance Theatre Workshop (DTW) and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, and serves on the Board Development Committee. In 2007 she was awarded DTW’s MOVE (Motivating Ongoing Vision and Excellence) Award for her pivotal role in building the organization over 20 years. She also serves on the Board of the Reggie Wilson/ Fist and Heel Performance Group.

Ms. Bryce-Buchanan is a member of the Alliance for Work Life Progress (AWLP) and the National Association of Female Executives (NAFE), is active in community affairs, serves on the Spence School Parents of Alumni Steering Committee and is a former Director of The Allen-Stevenson School.

Carol Bryce-Buchanan holds a B.Sc. degree from McGill and an M.A. from Concordia University (Canada); both in Developmental Psychology. She raised her family and lives in Manhattan. Her daughter is currently a Naturalist with the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, having worked in the Environmental Law practice at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York after graduating from Middlebury College. Her son is a Capital Management Associate with the Richman Asset Management, Inc. in Greenwich, Connecticut and graduated from Bucknell University.

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Marijata C. Daniel-Echols, Ph.D. is Senior Director of Education, Families, and Communities at the Families and Work Institute and serves as a member of the senior leadership team. She manages the Institute’s Early Learning and Community initiatives. A central part of that work are several projects that have grown organically from the content of the book Mind in the Making [Ellen Galinsky, Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs. (New York: HarperCollins, 2010)]. MITM projects include professional development for early childhood educators, interactive learning opportunities for families, 0 – 8 systems building within the Community Schools context, a video series that highlights cutting edge early childhood research, the development of materials for pediatricians, and small grants to diverse learning community partners.

Prior to joining FWI, Dr. Daniel-Echols was the Director of Research at the HighScope Educational Research Foundation where she was extensively involved in early childhood education research, program evaluation, and the development of tools designed to measure child outcomes and early childhood program quality. She has served as Principal Investigator for projects at the local, state, and national level addressing a range of topics including teacher professional development, early language and literacy, early math, special education, family, friend, and neighbor care, Head Start, and state-funded preschool. In addition to early childhood education, Daniel-Echols' knowledge base includes organizational theory, policy creation and implementation, and program evaluation applied to the areas of welfare reform, employment policy, and political participation. She has presented at academic and practitioner conferences as well as published articles, book chapters, and reports on the full range of these early childhood and public policy issues. Daniel-Echols has served as a consultant to state departments of education to help develop and implement early childhood education policies and program requirements as well as to nonprofit organizations in their data-driven strategic planning process.

She completed her undergraduate work in Sociology at the University of Michigan. She went on to earn a M.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan.

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Marline Griffith is a multi-functional Coordinator at Families and Work Institute. She manages the Publications Department, coordinates speaking events, and provides operations, administrative and reception support.

A native of Oxfordshire, England, Ms. Griffith has been with the Institute since 1999. Prior to joining FWI, she held a mail processing position with the United States Postal Service.

Leni is a Program Associate at Families and Work Institute. She works on a number of FWI’s initiatives, including When Work Works and The School-Based Health Care Project. As part of the When Work Works team, Leni helps with the Sloan Awards, administering the application process, scoring, communicating with community partners, and writing and contributing to the Guide to Bold New Ideas for Making Work Work. She also works with the Society for Human Resource Management to create products that promote workplace flexibility on a national scale.

Leni assists on The School-Based Health Care Project, managing data collection, writing grants and other materials, corresponding with case study sites, and researching future sites. She oversees FWI’s blog, helps with FWI’s communications and media efforts, and has aided the research and Mind in the Making teams.

A native New Yorker, Leni attended the Trinity School in New York. She graduated from Cornell University cum laude with a degree in English in 2006.

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Tony Kolasa is the Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary of Families and Work Institute. As a member of the Institute’s senior leadership team, Tony’s responsibilities include overseeing all of the accounting and financial functions at the Institute; developing, managing and implementing strategic partnership alliances and revenue streams; and managing contracts with independent contractors and sub-contractors.

Prior to joining the Institute in November 2010, Tony was a Partner with the Big Four CPA firm of Ernst & Young. At Ernst & Young, Tony’s primary focus was working with senior financial executives of not-for-profit organizations of all sizes, dealing with financial, accounting and tax issues. During his career at Ernst & Young, Tony also was an adjunct professor of accounting in the evenings at Rutgers University and Middlesex County College.

Tony received his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with an Accounting major from Villanova University. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants, and holds a CPA license in both New York and New Jersey. Tony lives in New Jersey with his wife Peggy, has two sons and a daughter, and six grandchildren.

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Kenneth Matos, Ph.D., is Senior Director of Employment Research and Practice at Families and Work Institute and serves as a member of the senior leadership team. He conducts research on a wide range of workforce and workplace issues, including diversity, mentoring, work-life fit, and workplace effectiveness. His responsibilities include identifying emerging employment issues and trends, conducting analyses, writing reports and speaking on the findings from the Families and Work Institute’s ongoing nationally representative studies—the National Study of Employers and the National Study of the Changing Workforce. He also co-directs When Work Works, a project on workplace flexibility and effectiveness, in collaboration with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). When Work Works sponsors the Sloan Awards for Effective and Flexible Workplaces, which recognizes employers for providing workplaces that are beneficial to both employers and employees.

Prior to joining FWI, Dr. Matos worked for the Department of Defense (DoD), where he developed, implemented, and analyzed surveys of members of the U.S. military, their families and related constituencies. His research for the DoD has examined issues of racial-ethnic harassment and discrimination, mentoring, and work satisfaction among military members and DoD civilian personnel. His work has been presented to Congress and various military policy offices. He has co-authored book chapters and research papers on best practices in diversity management, the effect of mentoring in the military, and the impact of deployments on military families.

He completed his undergraduate work in Psychology at Amherst College, received his master’s in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and earned his Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the George Washington University.

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Barbara Norcia-Broms is Development Associate at Families and Work Institute (formerly Development Coordinator since 1998) and has been at FWI since 1992, joining the Institute in its early years as Executive Assistant to President Ellen Galinsky.

Ms. Norcia-Broms provides support to FWI’s Board of Directors and assists the Director of Development in interfacing with the foundations and corporations which support FWI with unrestricted funding through the Corporate Leadership Circle (CLC) (CLC conference calls and annual Circle Briefing) and the annual Work Life Legacy Award event. She also monitors deadlines for restricted project funding, works closely with FWI’s Finance Department and often serves as proof-reader and copy-editor for the Institute’s reports and publications.

Prior to joining FWI, Ms. Norcia-Broms was Assistant to the Director of Public Events for Grand Central Partnership (GCP), a business improvement district encompassing 50-blocks around Grand Central Terminal. GCP produced Manhattan’s first First Night in 1991, a New Year’s Eve day celebration of the arts. In the 80s, she worked at Bank Street College of Education—where she met Ellen Galinsky—in Development and as Assistant Secretary to the Board of Trustees.

Barbara Norcia-Broms holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Queens College (The Aaron Copeland School of Music) of CUNY, Cum Laude and is a native of Rome, Italy. She is an operatic contralto and is President and Artistic Director of Manhattan Opera Association—a small opera company which she manages with her husband, tenor Martin Broms.

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Kelly Sakai is a Progam Manager at Families and Work Institute. Ms. Sakai manages the Institute's communications and media efforts, including social media and the FWI blog. She also staffs the When Work Works project, managing the data collection, scoring, analysis and reporting for the Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility.

Previous project work has included 9/11 As History and Salute to Educators.

Ms. Sakai studied political science and women’s studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Prior to coming to the Institute, she worked in marketing for SmallWorld.com.

Kelly Sakai is a native of Paso Robles, California and currently lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn with her husband, Mark.

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Tyler Wigton is a Program Manager at Families and Work Institute with a focus on workforce and workplace issues. She plays a key role in FWI’s When Work Works project, an ongoing national initiative on workplace effectiveness and flexibility funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Her responsibilities include overseeing the Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility, a component of the project that recognizes employers for successfully using flexibility to meet both business and employee goals.

She also works on The Supporting Work Project, funded by The Ford Foundation, which identifies, provides support to and evaluates innovative demonstration projects across the country that are helping employers of all sizes play an important role in educating their lower-wage workers about publicly-funded work supports and in making it easier for them to apply for and receive these benefits.

In addition, Ms. Wigton coordinates Families and Work Institute’s annual Work Life Conference, one of the thought leader events for the work life movement, which is co-convened with The Conference Board.

A native of Scotch Plains, New Jersey, Tyler Wigton graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and currently resides in New York City.

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Myrna Woods is the Manager of Finance and HR Administration at Families and Work Institute. She performs the day-to-day general accounting at FWI, working closely with the Chief Financial Officer assisting with quarterly and year-end closings and yearly audit preparation. She also assists in the implementation of goals, policies and procedures relating to accounting at FWI.

As HR Administrator, she is responsible for the daily management of HR policies and procedures, the administering of FWI’s benefit programs including group health, disability, unemployment and retirement plans while providing daily support to staff.

Prior to joining the Institute, Ms. Woods was a Staff Accountant at Century 21 Stores, a group of successful New York-based department stores. In 1998, she graduated from Bernard Baruch College where she received her Bachelor’s in Business Administration in Accounting.

Myrna Woods is a member of the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA), one of the leaders in expanding the influence of minority professionals in the fields of Accounting and Finance. In her free time Ms. Woods, with the help of NABA, provides free financial consulting and tax preparation services to low income residents of New York City.

A Caribbean native, Ms. Woods currently resides in upstate New York with her husband.

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