Prof. Brad Harrington
Executive Director

Dr. Harrington is the Executive Director of the Boston College Center for Work & Family (CWF) and a professor in the Carroll School of Management. The Center for Work & Family is the country’s leading university-based research center focused on helping employers in their efforts to improve the lives of working people and their families. It has more than 100 corporate members including many of the world’s most progressive and well respected employers. 

Prior to his arrival at Boston College, Dr. Harrington was an executive with Hewlett-Packard Company for twenty years. He served in a wide range of global leadership assignments in the US and Europe. His roles included Global Director of Management and Organization Development, Chief Quality Officer and Member of the Executive Committee for HP's Medical Products Business, Quality and Learning Director for Hewlett-Packard United Kingdom, Ltd., and a range of human resource management positions. Brad began his career in the public sector as a vocational counselor for the Department of Labor.

Dr. Harrington’s research and teaching focuses on career management and work-life integration, the changing role of fathers, contemporary workforce management strategies and the leadership of organizational change. He is a frequent keynote speaker at professional conferences and has published numerous journal articles, book chapters, and research reports. Along with Professor Douglas T. Hall of Boston University, he is the author of Career Management and Work/Life Integration: Using Self-Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers (Sage, 2007). He has also been the principal investigator on three major studies on how fathers manage their career and parenting responsibilities. He is lead author of The New Dad: Exploring Fathers in a Career Context (2010) and The New Dad: Caring, Committed and Conflicted (2011). Brad’s research has been cited by many major media outlets including the New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, and The Washington Post as well as the national newspapers of China, India and Brazil. He has appeared on CNN, Fox, and a number of National Public Radio outlets to discuss his work. In addition to his role at the University, Brad serves on the advisory board of the International Centre of Work and Family at IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain.

Dr. Harrington has consulted with many major employers in the areas of strategic planning, organizational change, career management, and innovative human resource strategies.  His clients have included, for example, Boston Scientific, Dow, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Levi-Strauss, Merck, Phillips, and Sodexo, He has also conducted executive education programs in more than 20 countries.   

Brad holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Stonehill College, a Master's degree in Psychology from Boston College, and a Doctorate in Human Resource Development and Organization Behavior from Boston University. He is married to Dr. Anne Soisson, Associate Director of the Center for Learning & Teaching at Tufts University, and they are the proud parents of Maggie (17), Hannah (14), and Dillon (12).

Learn more about Brad's work at the Center by watching this YouTube video!

Jennifer Fraone
Associate Director, Marketing and Communications

At the Boston College Center for Work & Family, Jennifer directs the New England Work & Family Association (NEWFA), an organization comprised of over 40 leading New England employers.  Jennifer manages all CWF marketing initiatives including the CWF website, social media, member newsletters, research reports and other publications.  She also works with organizations to provide research and consultation on flexibility, work-life balance and other workforce management issues.  Jennifer enjoys presenting on Workplace Flexibility and Work-Life Balance; recent speaking engagements include WorldatWork Total Rewards, the Psychologically Healthy Workplace Conference, Massachusetts Conference for Women, New England Human Resources Association Conference, Boston HR Council, Metro South Chamber of Commerce, Detours& On-Ramps Forum, and Back to Business: What You Need to Succeed. A frequent contributor to Fox 25 Boston’s Work-Life Wednesday segment, Jennifer can be found on Twitter @BCCWF. Jennifer was named the Part-time Professional of the Year for 2012, a national award given by the Talented Alliance of Part-time Professionals.

Jennifer received her BS in Clinical Psychology from Tufts University and her Master of Social Work and Master of Business Administration from Boston College. She worked for several years as a clinical social worker and then transitioned to roles in healthcare administration, consulting and marketing. Prior to joining the Center for Work & Family, Jennifer worked as a Consultant at Public Consulting Group in Boston and in Marketing at JJWild/Perot Systems, a healthcare technology and consulting firm.

Jennifer and her husband John have two children, Julia and Joseph.

Learn more about Jennifer's work at the Center by watching this YouTube video!

Danielle Hartmann
Director, Corporate Partnerships

Danielle is the Director of Corporate Partnerships at the Center for Work & Family, managing corporate relations and programming for the National Workforce Roundtable and the Global Workforce Roundtable. She works with leading multi-national organizations from a diverse set of industries, committed to making significant progress in the areas of work-life and workforce management.  Danielle focuses her work with corporations on communicating effectively, developing a global mindset, and implementing programs in a culturally-sensitive manner to meet the needs of diverse local environments. 

At CWF, Danielle has helped produce a benchmarking report on flexible work arrangement best practices in the Asia Pacific region, launched the international Executive Briefing series with issues on Work-Life in Brazil, Russia, India, China, Sweden, Japan, and Germany, and co-authored an article on the multigenerational workforce. 

Prior to joining the Center for Work & Family, Danielle worked for 10 years in academia on international development research projects in Eastern and Southern Africa, Central America, and Central Asia.  Danielle attained her BA from Brown University in Anthropology and Economics and a master's degree in International Communications from American University.  Danielle and her husband Chris have two children, Cooper and Mia.

Learn more about Danielle's work at the Center by watching this YouTube video!

Kaitlin Duffy

Member Relations Specialist

Kaitlin is the Member Relations Specialist at the Center for Work & Family, supporting members of the Global Workforce Roundtable, National Work & Family Roundtable, and New England Work & Family Association (NEWFA). At the Center, Kaitlin responds to member inquiries on a variety of work-life topics, including flexibility, diversity & inclusion, women's advancement, global work-life, and many others. She also assists with the planning and execution of member meetings and teleconferences, as well as manages the Virtual Roundtable, an online community for Center members. Kaitlin researches and analyzes work-life topics relevant to our corporate members and synthesizes the information for practical use in a corporate setting.

Prior to joining the Center for Work & Family, Kaitlin was an Advisor on Forrester Research's eBusiness Leadership Board where she helped facilitate a global peer-to-peer Council of eBusiness executives at top-tier firms.  Kaitlin received her B.S. in Marketing from Boston College. 

Learn more about Kaitlin's work at the Center by watching this YouTube video!

Lauren Stiller Rikleen
Executive-In-Residence

Lauren Stiller Rikleen, a nationally recognized expert on developing a thriving, diverse and multi-generational workforce, is the Executive-In-Residence at the Boston College Center for Work & Family.

A former equity partner at Bowditch & Dewey, LLP, Lauren launched the Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership to help businesses and other organizations create a culture where their professionals can advance and flourish. She brings to each engagement more than two decades of experience as a law firm partner, mediator, and professional and community leader. 

Lauren is the author of Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s Success in the Law (2006), which has been highly acclaimed for its thoughtful insights into the management of today’s law firms and the institutional impediments to the retention and advancement of women in the legal profession.  She is also the author of Success Strategies for Women Lawyers, published in the fall of 2010, and is currently writing a book on the Millennial generation in the workplace.

Lauren is a member of the American Bar Association Board of Governors, and was the only non-New York lawyer appointed to the New York State Bar Association's Task Force on the Future of the Legal Profession.  When she was President of the Boston Bar Association, Lauren established the Task-Force on Professional Challenges and Family Needs which produced Facing the Grail – Confronting the Costs of Work/Family Imbalance, a report which received national attention for its in-depth analysis of the cost of attrition in law firms. She was also a founding member of the Massachusetts Equality Commission, which examined the link between the relative lack of women in leadership positions in the law, the growing rate of attrition, and the demands of law firm practice.  

Lauren is married to Sander A. Rikleen (BCLS ’76), a partner at Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP. They have two children, Alex (BC ’09) and Ilyse (BC ’12).

Learn more about Lauren's work at the Center by watching this YouTube video!

Fred Van Deusen
Senior Research Associate

Fred Van Deusen is a Senior Research Associate at the Center. He participates in and manages various research initiatives that the Center performs, with a special focus on member driven research. He also leads the Center's custom analyses work on the Standards of Excellence in Work/Life Integration. Fred has held a number of executive positions with the Hewlett-Packard Company, primarily as division Quality Manager for several different HP organizations. Prior to joining the Center, Fred was a Senior Vice President at NORC, the National Opinion Research Center. NORC performs large scale research studies primarily for the U.S. government.

Fred holds a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Northeastern University, and a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Boston College. His wife Alice has recently retired as a professor at Simmons College in Boston. They are parents of three children, Mark, Amy and Julie.

Learn more about Fred's work at the Center by watching this YouTube video!

Maryellen Carr

Fiscal Specialist

Maryellen is the Fiscal Specialist at the Center for Work & Family.  Her responsibilities include budget development, forecasting, financial reporting and fiscal administration.              

Prior to joining the Center for Work & Family Maryellen was the Fiscal and Grant Officer in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College where she was responsible for the development, management and administration of externally funded projects.

Maryellen received her BA in English and Secondary Education from Boston State College/UMass Boston and taught in both public and private secondary schools.  She received her MA in Higher Education Administration from Boston College.

Maryellen’s family includes her husband, her son and his wife, her daughter and her husband and four grandchildren.

Franca Godenzi

Graduate Assistant

Franca is in her senior year in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston College. As part of her senior thesis, she conducted an independent research study on how women balance their career and family demands with a professor emeritus of the Boston College Department of Sociology.  In the fall of 2013, Franca will begin her Master’s of Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. At the Center for Work and Family, Franca helps to research topics to support member programming, coordinates travel arrangements, compiles and distributes listserv responses, and updates the Center’s website.  

Iyar Mazar

Graduate Assistant

At the Center for Work and Family, Iyar assists with organizing Center events and staff meetings, coordinating travel arrangements, compiling and distributing listserv responses, and updating the Center website, among other tasks. She has also been involved in many of the Center's research endeavors, from the recent publication, The New Dad: Caring, Committed, Conflicted, to other projects on financial wellness and millennials. Iyar received her B.A. in Sociology from Wheaton College in Norton, MA and is pursuing her M.A. in Sociology at Boston College.

Beth Humberd

Beth Kroner Humberd is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in the Organization Studies Department at Boston College, and she currently teaches Organizational Behavior to undergraduate students in the Carroll School of Management. 

Beth’s broad research interests focus on understanding how diverse individuals experience organizational life, with a focus on interpersonal relationships, issues of gender and race, and individual identities and meaning at work.  She has published in the Academy of Management Learning & Education, and her work recently received the Michael J. Driver Best Careers Paper award and an Outstanding Theoretical Paper award at the Eastern Academy of Management Conference. 

Beth holds a B.S. with honors from Babson College and an MBA with high distinction from Bentley University.  Prior to beginning the doctoral program at BC, Beth worked in various roles within Finance and Human Resources at a medical device company and a top accounting firm.

Sumayya Essack

Graduate Assistant

Sumayya is in her second year of Boston College’s joint Master’s of Social Work and Master’s of Business Administration program. At the Center she works on member resource development and responds to member inquiries about work-life issues. She is strongly interested in work-life issues as they relate to business strategy, employee engagement, and creating an inclusive, diverse workforce.

Sumayya received her B.S. in Communication Studies from the University of Miami. Prior to beginning graduate school at BC she worked as a paralegal at an immigration law firm. She has lived abroad in three countries and traveled extensively outside the U.S.