Aging and Work at Boston College

The Sloan Center’s Research Fellows provide advice on the Center's research agenda and investigations. They also share their own research findings through research briefs and research reports.

Emily Allen	Assistant National Director AARP Foundation Workforce Programs Emily Allen is the Director of the Workforce Initiative for the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Foundation. Ms. Allen is responsible for managing a multi-faceted program designed to create a national awareness regarding the value of the 50-plus workforce and its future impact on the economy. Through the Workforce Initiative, AARP is working to become an integral part of the workforce system by forming sustained and substantive relationships with various groups and segments of the national business infrastructure and working together to craft the strategies to effectively engage the 50-plus workforce as a business solution to worker and skill shortages.

Boris Baltes, PhD	Chair and Associate Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology Wayne State University Boris B. Baltes is an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at Wayne State University in Detroit. He received his degree in industrial/organizational psychology from Northern Illinois University. He also has an MBA in international business from the University of Wisconsin. His research interests include: biases in performance appraisal, age and workplace issues, and work-family balance.

Mary Catherine Bateson, PhD	Visiting Scholar Sloan Center on Aging & Work, Boston College Catherine Bateson was the Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Anthropology and English at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia and is now Professor Emerita. Since 2006, she has been working with the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College as a visiting scholar.

Olivia M. Blackmon	Director of Research Thurgood Marshall College Fund Olivia Blackmon joined Thurgood Marshall College Fund as an education research and statistical consultant in 2006. In 2007, she was the Director of Research and Statistics for the Diversity in Education Fund and worked as the Senior Statistician for educational related topics at the magazine Diverse: Issues In Higher Education. Through the fund, she has contributed to minority research in partnership with Innovative Educators, National Association for Equal Opportunity, National Science Foundation, The Pell Institute and the Lumina Foundation. In 2007, she finished her Education Writers Association fellowship at Harvard University in Applied Statistics, focusing on minority gaps on NAEP data. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Sociology of Education at George Mason University.

Jessica Collison	Director, Strategic Planning Society for Human Resource Management Jessica Collison has been the Manager of the Society for Human Resource Management's Survey Program (SHRM) since August 2000. As part of the Society's professional services, SHRM analyzes HR professionals' perceptions of issues affecting the workplace. The Survey Program collaborates with such institutions as CareerJournal.com and Gallup on timely issues affecting HR professionals.

Ellen M. Galinsky	President & Co-Founder Families and Work Institute Ellen Galinsky is President and Co-Founder of Families and Work Institute (FWI), a Manhattan-based non-profit organization that conducts research on the changing family, changing workforce and changing community. Before co-founding FWI, Ms. Galinsky was on the faculty of Bank Street College of Education for 25 years, where she helped establish the field of work and family life.

Joanna N. Lahey, PhD	Assistant Professor of Economics The Bush School, Texas A&M University Joanna N. Lahey is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economics Research. She is a member of the faculty at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A & M University. Dr. Lahey received her PhD in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her bachelor’s degree with honors in mathematics and economics from Pomona College in Claremont, California. She has an expertise in age discrimination and how age relates to labor market outcomes.

Lydia Logan	Vice-President and Executive Director Institute for a Competitive Workforce, U.S Chamber of Commerce

Victor Marshall, PhD	Professor of Sociology UNC and Senior Research Scientist UNC Institute on Aging Victor Marshall is a Senior Research Scientist at the UNC Institute on Aging, Professor of Sociology, and Adjunct Professor of health behavior and health education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Marshall has held a number of executive positions in the field of aging, including: Vice-President of the Canadian Association on Gerontology; Board Member of the Southern Gerontological Society; Director of the Canadian Aging Research Network; Executive Committee of the International Association on Gerontology; and Chair of the Fellowship Committee, Gerontological Society of America.

Phyllis Moen, PhD	McKnight Presidential Chair in Sociology University of Minnesota Dr. Moen teaches and conducts research at the University of Minnesota on life-course transitions and trajectories related to work and family careers over the life course, aging and gender stratification, and family policy. In 1997 she received a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to establish the Cornell Employment and Family Careers Institute. The institute serves to highlight the simultaneous and shifting relationships among work organizations, community institutions, occupational careers, and family careers. She received her PhD in sociology from the University of Minnesota, and both her MA in sociology and BA in social science from the University of North Dakota.

Michàlle Mor Barak, PhD	Professor of Social Work and Business School of Social Work & Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California Michàlle E. Mor Barak is a Professor at the University of Southern California with a joint appointment at the School of Social Work and the Marshall School of Business. She holds the Lenore Stein-Wood and William S. Wood Professorship of Social Work and Business in a Global Society and is the Chair of the Industrial/Occupational Social Work Program. Professor Mor Barak has received awards of distinction, including a Fulbright award, the Lady Davis award for international exchange scholars, the University of California Regents Award, the Mellon Foundation’s Award for Excellence in Mentorship, and the Franklin C. Sterlin Distinguished Faculty Award for Research and Scholarship.

Jennifer Schramm, M. Phil.	Manager, Workplace Trends and Forecasting Society for Human Resource Management Jennifer is the Manager of the Workplace Trends and Forecasting program at SHRM, where she writes the Workplace Visions series and the Future Focus monthly column appearing in HR magazine. Prior to joining SHRM, Jennifer worked as Research and Policy Advisor specializing in Workforce Development for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in London, UK where she was also executive board member of the European Training and Development Federation, UK steering committee member of the European Commission’s Training of Trainers Network and UK representative for the European Commission’s Center for the Development of Vocational Education and Training.

Michael A. Smyer, PhD	Provost Bucknell University Michael A. Smyer is the provost and a professor of psychology at Bucknell University. Prior to joining Bucknell, Smyer was a professor of psychology and co-director of the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. At the center, he focused on developing evidence-based practices to enhance the individual and organizational effectiveness of 21st-century workplaces. Smyer's research and teaching focus on adult development and aging, with special attention to the impact of the contexts of aging. In addition, he has written extensively on aging and mental health, particularly the policy aspects of this area.

Harvey Sterns, PhD	Professor of Psychology The University of Akron Director and Senior Fellow Institute for Life-Span Development and Gerontology, The University of Akron Dr. Sterns received his PhD, in Life-Span Developmental Psychology from West Virginia University in 1971. His major areas of interest include industrial gerontology, life-span development, training and career development. He is Director of the Institute for Life- Span Development and Gerontology. Dr. Sterns’ current research includes training of adult and older adult workers, personality factors, and retirement adjustment and satisfaction, as well as personality factors in housing choices in retirement.

Jennifer Swanberg, PhD	Associate Professor of Social Work College of Social Work, Colleges of Medicine and Public Health, University of Kentucky Executive Director Institute for Workplace Innovation, University of Kentucky Jennifer E. Swanberg is executive director of the Institute for Workplace Innovation at the University of Kentucky, and associate professor in the UK College of Social Work with joint appointments in the Colleges of Medicine and Public Health. She is also a faculty affiliate with the UK Center on Poverty Research and the Center for the Advancement of Women’s Health, a research investigator at the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College and a Research Fellow of the Boston College Work & Family Roundtable. Her research focuses on quality workplaces as a business and work-life effectiveness strategy, access to workplace flexibility among under-represented populations, and the use of human capital and quality employment as a form of economic development. She is co-principal investigator of the Workplace Culture and Flexible Work Arrangements study funded by Sloan Center on Aging & Work. Dr. Swanberg has published widely in research journals and has appeared as a national work-life expert on television and radio. Dr. Swanberg was a recipient of the Alliance of Work-Life Progress Rising Star Award, and in 2005 her research was selected as one of the top 10 research articles by the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research

Stephen Sweet, PhD	Associate Professor of Sociology Ithaca College Stephen Sweet is an associate professor of sociology at Ithaca College and was formerly the associate director of the Cornell Work and Family Careers Institute. He has published widely on work-family concerns and curriculum development. His most recent books are Changing Contours of Work (2008), The Work and Family Handbook: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Methods and Approaches (2005), and Data Analysis with SPSS: A First Course in Applied Statistics (2008, 2003, 1998). His current research focuses on the intersecting concerns of job security, talent retention, and the changing composition of the workforce.

Cynthia Thompson, PhD	Professor of Management Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College Academic Director Opting Back In: A Program for Professionals Re-entering the Workforce, Baruch College Cynthia Thompson is a professor of management in the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College, where she teaches courses organizational behavior and human resource management. She recently served as Director of the Zicklin Opting Back In Program, a program she designed to help women and men relaunch their careers after a career hiatus. In addition to her consulting and teaching, she has conducted research on work-family issues for 20+ years. Two of her articles were nominated for the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research. Dr. Thompson’s research focuses on the integration of work and life, and in particular, the extent to which supportive work-family cultures affect employee attitudes and behaviors. She is also interested in studying the efficacy of social networks, social support, and coping resources in relation to unemployment duration.

Carl Van Horn, PhD	Executive Director John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Carl Van Horn is the founding Director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development and chairs Rutgers' Workforce Development Coordinating Council, a group that includes all major training and research units that are concerned with the preparation and improvement of the workforce. He is a widely recognized expert on workforce, human resources, and employment policy issues with extensive experience in public and private sector policymaking.

John Williamson, PhD	Professor of Sociology Boston College John Williamson, a Professor of sociology, received his PhD in social psychology from Harvard University and SB in philosophy and physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Williamson has written extensively on the comparative study of social welfare policies, particularly those dealing with the elderly. His current research and writing efforts deal with the debate over generational equity and justice between generations in connection with Social Security policy in the United States, comparative international studies of social security policy, and quantitative studies of social, economic, and political determinants of cross-national differences in social policy and social justice issues such as income inequality, welfare state spending levels, pension spending, physical quality of life, and life expectancy. His recent work makes extensive use of comparative historical analysis and quantitative cross-national analysis.