Meet Our Team

Jennifer Sabatini Fraone is the Interim Executive Director of the Boston College Center for Work & Family. Jennifer was formerly the Director of Corporate Partnerships. She works closely with the Boston College Workforce Roundtable, the premier learning and networking community for progressive employers who seek to provide a superior employee experience. Jennifer develops member programming and manages all CWF marketing initiatives including the CWF website, social media, member newsletters, research reports and other publications. Jennifer also works with organizations to provide research, training 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 the Future of Work Forum, WorldatWork Total Rewards, the New England HR Association and the Massachusetts Conference for Women. Jennifer was the founder of and a regular guest on the Fox 25 News Boston Work-Life Wednesday segment. She has been featured on NECN, Marketplace, NPR, in the Boston Globe, Fortune, The Huffington Post, Human Resource Executive and other publications. Jennifer received her BS in Clinical Psychology from Tufts University and her Master of Social Work and Master of Business Administration from Boston College. Jennifer and her husband John are the proud parents of two spirited teenagers.

Madeleine is the Assistant Director of Member Services at the Center for Work & Family, in which she supports members of the Boston College Workforce Roundtable. She plans and executes annual Roundtable conferences and monthly virtual events, as well as managing the Center’s communications. Working with member organizations, Madeleine facilitates research on HR topics of interest, including flexibility, well-being, diversity & inclusion, and women's advancement.

Madeleine is currently an M.B.A. candidate in the Boston College Carroll School of Management. She graduated from BC in 2022 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Political Science. As an undergraduate, she served as managing editor of the independent student newspaper at BC, The Heights, and was a member of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team of journalists at The Miami Herald.

In her role as Senior Research Associate, Tina works closely with member companies to design, perform and produce primary research on workforce management issues.  She is also involved in other research activities of the Center, including benchmarking studies and executive briefings. Prior to joining the Center for Work & Family, Tina worked in product management for Johnson & Johnson and was Chief of Staff at MCP Hahnemann (Drexel) University School of Medicine.  She has also worked in various clinical research capacities at Massachusetts General Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Tina graduated from Harvard College with an AB in English & American Literature and earned her MBA at MIT Sloan School of Management with a focus on Strategic Management. She and her husband John live in Needham with their three children.

Keila is a researcher and practitioner with an expertise in gender dynamics in the workplace, organizational culture and change, talent management, and leadership development. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from Villanova University, an M.A. in Social-Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, and a doctoral degree in Administration, Training, and Policy/HR Education from Boston University. As an Organizational Development (OD) practitioner, Keila has worked conducting both large-scale, organization-wide initiatives, as well as department-based interventions within a wide range of industries – including banking and financial services, information technology, healthcare, and management consulting. Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Keila has held various roles in OD and Training.

She is passionate about encouraging and supporting others to achieve growth and transformation in the pursuit of a more whole, values-driven life. Her interest in examining gender dynamics through the lens of work/life integration amplified after having her two children, solidifying her focus on workplace culture, talent management, and employee engagement.  She has since been developing content on a freelance basis related to these topics.

Julie is the Fiscal Specialist at the Center for Work & Family and is responsible for accounting correspondence and bookkeeping.  Julie has nearly 30 years of experience in public and private accounting.  She graduated from Stonehill College and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

Dr. Brad Harrington was formerly the Executive Director of the Center for Work & Family, a research professor in the Carroll School of Management, and a faculty member in the University’s Capstone Program. Prior to his arrival at Boston College, Brad was an executive with Hewlett-Packard Company for twenty years. He served in a wide range of global and business unit leadership assignments in the U.S. and Europe.

Brad’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. He consults with many major employers in the areas of strategic planning, human resources, and organizational change. He is the author of Career Management and Work / Life Integration: Using Self-Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers and The New Dad, a 10-year research series on how todays fathers manage their careers and parenting responsibilities. Brad’s research has been cited by hundreds of major media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post.

Brad serves on the advisory board of the International Centre of Work and Family at IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain and is a research fellow of the Human Resource Policy Institute (HRPI) at Boston University. He is a graduate of Stonehill College and holds advanced degrees in psychology and human resources from Boston College and Boston University. He is married to Annie Soisson, EdD, director of the Center for Learning & Teaching at Tufts University. They are the proud parents of Maggie (BC ’17), Hannah, & Dillon.

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Meena is an intern at the Boston College Center for Work & Family. She supports the members by reviewing research on topics like diversity, equity, and inclusion and family benefits in the workplace. She also assists in gathering and sharing benchmarking data. Meena is currently a senior in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences majoring in Psychology.

Patrick is an intern at the Boston College Center for Work & Family. He supports the Center by researching workforce trends and is involved with membership initiatives. Patrick is currently a senior in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences majoring in Psychology and German, and minoring in Management & Leadership.

Willa is an intern at the Boston College Center for Work & Family. She supports the members by reviewing research on topics like diversity, equity, and inclusion and family benefits in the workplace. She also assists in gathering and sharing benchmarking data. Willa is currently a junior in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences majoring in Psychology and minoring in Finance.

Jennifer Kelley has background in employee benefits and well-being both in corporate and non-profit settings. She has been working at FM for 7 years and in her current role as a Benefits Consultant Americas, she works in the Total Rewards Center of Expertise focusing on strategy, design and communications of health and well-being programs at FM.

Diana Cruz Solash is Vice President, Talent and Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (ID&E) at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. In collaboration with senior leaders, employee resource networks, human resources and community affairs, Diana is responsible for progressing Vertex’s global ID&E strategy, talent development programs, and culture initiatives.

Prior to Vertex, Diana spent 20+ years at EY in various HR leadership roles – from recruiting and learning & development to corporate social responsibility, and organizational development – and spearheaded their global D&I roadmap and ethnic minority retention strategy for seven years. Diana also served as the first ID&E leader at Infor – a global software company with 17,000 employees.

Diana serves on the Martha’s Vineyard Chief Diversity Officer Summit steering committee, is a participant in the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association New England Executive Exchange program, and is a mentor for Fred’s Team, a Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center running program. She previously served as a Co-Chair for the Committee for Economic Development’s Women’s Economic Contribution Subcommittee and as President for the NY Chapter of Ascend.

Diana holds a BA in Economics & Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She is an avid marathon runner and single mom who enjoys spending quality time with her sons Max and Scotty.

Elena Richards is a Principal and Chief Culture & Inclusion Officer at KPMG LLP. She is an accomplished HR and talent management professional with deep knowledge of the professional services industry.

Elena leads the firm’s national Culture and Inclusion team and works closely with the KPMG U.S. Management Committee and Board of Directors to advance the firm’s strategy to attract and retain high-performing talent and foster an inclusive work environment. Elena further collaborates with the KPMG functional leaders on the business integration of the firm’s strategic talent priorities.

Elena leads firmwide initiatives that drive culture and inclusion across the firm, as well as its the Business Resource Group (BRG) Leadership Council which oversees 200+ national and local BRG chapters and inclusion councils. She serves on the Talent and Culture Leadership Team, driving the collaboration with people-centric processes to further embed inclusion practices in workforce shaping, workforce enablement, workforce innovation, organizational engagement and culture.

With over 20 years of experience, Elena’s north star is to create psychologically safe workplaces and consistent experiences for everyone at KPMG. She has championed KPMG being a signatory on pledges with organizations that support an inclusive workforce. In 2021, she was the recipient of the NJCPA Ovation award, recognized for her passion and contributions towards promoting inclusion across the finance and accounting profession.

Elena earned her BA in criminal justice at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and is a certified executive coach.

Jennifer Law serves as Manager of Work-Life Benefits in the Colleague Total Rewards & Well-being division at American Express.  In this role, she focuses on developing and managing US policies and programs that support employees’ work-life integration and well-being.  She has over two decades of diverse HR experience in healthcare at Memorial Sloan Kettering and financial services at American Express where she has been since 2019.  Jennifer earned her BBA in Finance & Economics from Baruch College. 

At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Christine’s team manages employee recognition programs for the 22,000 MKS employees; child & adult care benefits (including 2 exclusive childcare centers in NYC, care concierge, Back-up Care, Special Needs & College Coach ); physical and emotional wellbeing programs including EAP, wellbeing platfom and lactation program; the service awards program. Employee engagement has been her focus for over 23 years. During that time her industry involvement includes serving on the WorkLife Steering Committee at AWLP/World at Work, Corporate Leadership Council at Families and Work Institute and is currently serving on the Advisory Board for the Boston College Center for Work & Family.

Jamie Ladge is a Professor of Management and Organization in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. She was previously Professor and Group Chair of Management and Organizational Development at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business and a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Exeter Business School in Exeter, U.K. She is primarily known for her research exploring the intersection of work and family, stigmatized social identities, and career equality, gender and diversity issues in organizations. Ladge's core area of research focuses on the psychological and career implications of professionally-employed mothers and fathers. She also researches the diversity challenges and work and family boundaries of those holding stigmatized social identities including pregnant workers and same-sex couples. Her work has been published in several top management and human resources journals including the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Academy of Management Perspectives, Human Resource Management, and Harvard Business Review. She also recently co-authored the book, “Maternal Optimism: Forging Positive Paths through Work and Motherhood” which was published by Oxford University Press.

Professor Ladge is a frequent speaker, both nationally and internationally, on the topic of gender and diversity in organizations and work-life integration. Her research has also received a significant amount of media attention in major media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Atlantic, Forbes, Fortune, CNN Money, Businessweek, and other prominent media outlets. At Northeastern, she taught courses on Managing Human Capital, Managing People and Organizations, Career Management, and Organizational Behavior.

Professor Ladge is a current member of the Academy of Management, Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, American Psychological Association, Society for Human Resource Professionals, and Work-Family Researchers Network. She recently served as the Division Chair of the Careers Division of the Academy of Management and is currently Associate Editor at the Journal of Organizational Behavior.

Shelley joined the Center for Work & Family as an academic fellow in 1997. She received an MBA in Management and Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from the Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on relationships between job conditions and family life, with special interests in organizational size, adult development, and organizational policies, and has been published in scientific journals including the Journal of Marriage and Family and theAcademy of Management Journal.

Shelley is the Associate Dean of the College of Consumer and Family Sciences and a Professor in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies at Purdue University, where she also directs the Center for Families and the Military Family Research Institute. Additionally, in her role as the Director of the Midwestern Work Family Association (MWFA), Shelley joined the Center in its partnership with One Small Step on the BalanceSheets Series, and with former NEWFA Director Judi Casey, she has presented on the role of regional work/life organizations.

In 1999, Shelley's Center on Families initiated, along with CWF, the first-ever Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work/Life Research. Shelley is committed to working with the Center to strengthen the bridge between the academic and corporate worlds. Her research has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Henry A. Murray Center, the Department of Defense, the Lilly Endowment, and the state of Indiana; and has earned awards from the Groves Conference and Gamma Sigma Delta.  She recently served as the civilian co-chair of the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health.  She is a 2006 winner of the Work-Life Legacy Award from the Families and Work Institute and in 2005, Shelley was named a fellow of the National Council on Family Relations. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Family Issues, Family Relations, and Journal of Family and Economic Issues.

Dr. Constance (Connie) Noonan Hadley is an organizational psychologist, founder of the Institute for Life at Work, a research associate professor at Boston University Questrom School of Business, and a consulting researcher at Microsoft Research Lab.

Dr. Hadley is an expert and well-known speaker on the future of work, team dynamics, psychological safety, employee loneliness, well-being at work, and inclusive cultures.

Her research has been published in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The New York Times, Wired, Forbes, and other news outlets.

Her article with Mark Mortensen, “Are Your Team Members Lonely?” won the prestigious 2022 Beckhard Memorial Prize for the most outstanding article of the year on planned change and organizational development by MIT Sloan Management Review.

She holds a PhD in organizational behavior from Harvard University, an MBA from Wharton, and a BA from Princeton University. Previously, she worked in management consulting at McKinsey & Company and in marketing and operations at General Mills, Inc. 

In her spare time, Dr. Hadley serves as a Board of Trustees member at McLean Hospital, a leader in behavioral and mental health, as well as a mentor to low-income, first-generation, students.

Ellen Ernst Kossek is the Basil S. Turner Distinguished Professor at Purdue University’s Mitch Daniels School of Business. She holds a Ph.D. from Yale University, an MBA from the University of Michigan, and a BA with honors from Mount Holyoke College. A leading social scientist and workplace expert, she served as the first elected President of the Work-Family Researchers Network and is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, American Psychological Association, and the Society of Industrial Organizational Psychology. Dr. Kossek has received awards for research, teaching, and service excellence to advance gender equality, inclusion, and work-life flexibility and support in employing organizations and society. Her current research examines initiatives to 1) advance work-life equality; 2) improve the implementation of flexibility and work-life policies (e.g., hybrid and remote working, maternity/sick leaves, control over work-life boundary; and 3) design, deliver and evaluate leadership and organizational interventions to help employers adapt to the future of work. She had developed an assessment and training to help individuals and teams manage their work-life connectivity and boundary management styles; and training for managers to learn who to adopt family and personal life supportive behaviors She recently served on a National Academy of Sciences expert panel on the need to enhance policies and practices for supporting family caregivers working in science, engineering and medicine. A recent Harvard Business Review article on the future of flexibility was selected as a “must read” for 2023. Dr. Kossek has been invited to give talks to managers and students in well over a dozen countries round the world. Prior to becoming a professor, she worked on human resource issues for major corporations in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Erin L. Kelly is the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Co-Director of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research.

Kelly’s research has been published in many top sociology, management, and interdisciplinary journals and twice recognized with the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award. Her book with Phyllis Moen, Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do About It, was published by Princeton University Press in March 2020. Overload received the 2021 Max Weber Award from the American Sociological Association's Organizations, Occupations, and Work section, and an honorable mention for the 2021 Viviana Zelizer Award for best book in economic sociology. Overload was also named as one of Business Insider's 10 Books to Read to Learn about the Future of Work.

Alexis “Lex” Smith Washington is an Associate Professor of Management at the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University.  Lex’s focal research areas span workplace issues such as diversity, intersectionality, social identity, impression management, as well as work and family interface.  Currently, Lex’s research examines the impact of identities, including parental and family status, on the ways individuals manage their professional image at work, as well as organizational factors that facilitate the inclusion and advancement of marginalized people at work. For example, she is engaged in research focused on the roles of intersectional identities and bias on the experience of working parents, senior level women and social class transitioners in corporate America. In line with her gender, diversity and intersectionality research agenda, Lex has published research (under the name Alexis Nicole Smith) in such outlets as the Academy of Management, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Organization Science, and contributed to edited books such as the Handbook of Prejudice and Discrimination and the International Encyclopedia of Organizational Studies.  In addition, Lex serves as Senior Editor at Organization Science.

Sarah Thébaud is Professor of Sociology, Faculty Affiliate of the Technology Management Program, and Director of the Families, Gender and Work area at the Broom Center for Demography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research identifies social psychological and institutional processes that contribute to gender inequalities in work, families, higher education, and entrepreneurship. Her work has appeared in academic outlets such as American Sociological Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Gender & Society, Social Forces, and the Annual Review of Sociology, as well as leading media publications like The New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic and The Wall Street Journal. She earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from Cornell University and was previously a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University.

Judith Clair’s research focuses on demographic/social identities (e.g., race, gender, social class) and inequalities in the workplace; on development and transitions in professional identities; and on positive organizational experiences such as hope and positive growth. Her gender- and diversity-focused research includes experiences of “cross-domain” identity change in first-time pregnant professional women; how social class background shapes how women understand their advancement into top organizational positions; how benevolent sexism during pregnancy effects workplace retention of women post-pregnancy; how professional women in STEM fields define and experience benefits from others’ inclusive leadership practices; and how individuals with invisible stigmatized identities manage those identities in the workplace.

Professor Clair is also recognized for her contributions to research on how organizations can effectively manage crises and critical events to minimize harm and to facilitate positive growth, as well as her work on teaching pedagogy and the peer-review process. Her publications appear in the top journals in Management and Applied Psychology, including the Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Human Relations, Personnel Psychology, and Academy of Management Learning and Education. Clair has received national and university teaching awards. She has taught courses on organizational behavior, leadership, gender, and multicultural diversity, equity and inclusion in organizations. She has taught courses at the undergraduate, MBA, PhD, and executive levels.

Marcus Butts is an award-winning teacher and researcher. He received his PhD from the University of Georgia and his bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University, and was previously on the faculties at University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). While at UTA, his teaching accolades included being nominated for the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and being the recipient of both the Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award and the Outstanding Faculty Service Award for PhD Education.

Marcus’ research expertise includes the work-life interface, leadership, and analytical methods focused on experience sampling, multilevel statistics, and latent variable modeling. He has published in top academic outlets including Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Personnel Psychology. His research on the daily impact of electronic communications for employees’ personal lives has been cited widely in media outlets such as Fox News, NPR, TIME, and Huffington Post. Also, his work on how leadership can involuntarily become destructive has been covered by Harvard Business Review. He has twice won the best paper award from the Academy of Management, and his paper on statistical myths and urban legends in the field of management won the best article of the year award from Organizational Research Methods. Marcus also serves as an executive officer for the Research Methods Division of the Academy of Management and is on the editorial board of Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Personnel Psychology, and Organizational Research Methods.

Prior to obtaining his PhD, Marcus worked as a project manager for AON-Hewitt—a large international HR benefits consulting corporation. Over the years, Dr. Butts has provided HR consulting services to a variety of clients including Chick-Fil-A, FedEx, HKS architects, Home Depot, HumRRO, McKee Foods, UPS, and Wal-Mart. Further, he has previously delivered corporate methods and statistics training in the areas of job analysis, meta-analysis, LISREL/Mplus path modeling, predictive analytics, and survey design. He also has been involved in large-scale research grants from both the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

As an advocate for employee work-life balance, Marcus enjoys as much free time as possible with his two young children and his wife Erin, and occasionally he tries to find time for running or a fishing trip when he is not serving as a chauffeur for soccer or gymnastics practice.