Donna Haig Friedman, Ph.D.
Center Director and Research Associate Professor
donna.friedman@umb.edu
617-287-5565

Donna Haig Friedman, Ph.D., Research Associate Professor and 2006-2007 Fulbright Scholar, directs the Center for Social Policy within the University of Massachusetts Boston's McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies. She is a nationally recognized scholar in the field of poverty, housing policy, and homelessness. Within these fields, she specializes in policy analysis and research on family homelessness. She is the author of Parenting in Public: Family Shelter and Public Assistance (Columbia University Press, 2000) and of numerous articles and commissioned reports on homelessness and poverty.
Recent Center Work: Homeless Prevention

Randy Albelda, Ph.D.
Faculty Affiliate
randy.albelda@umb.edu
617-287-5516

Randy Albelda is a faculty affiliate with the Center for Social Policy from the UMass Boston Economics Department and also the McCormack Graduate School's Associate Department Chair for Public Policy and Public Affairs. Randy has worked as research director of the Massachusetts State Senate's Taxation Committee and the legislature's Special Commission on Tax Reform. Her research and teaching covers a broad range of economic policies affecting low-income families. She has written on welfare reform, paid family leave policies, racial and gender divisions in occupations, same sex couples and children, the distribution of family income and earnings, and gender and race bias in radical theories of labor market segmentation. Her most recent work includes the edited volumes The Dilemmas of Lone Motherhood: Essays from Feminist Economics and Lost Ground: Poverty, Welfare Reform, and Beyond and coauthored reports, "A Tale of Two Decades: Changes in Work," "Family in Massachusetts 1979-1999," and "Beyond Welfare: Emergency Services in Massachusetts." Besides these writings, she is also the author or co-author of over twenty articles, ten book chapters and dozens of policy reports including "Paying Off: The Costs and Benefits of Paid Family and Medical Leave in Massachusetts." Each year the Chancellor of UMass Boston honors one faculty member for his or her distinguished scholarship, Randy Albelda received this prestigious honor in 2004.
Recent Center Work: Bridging the Gaps

Françoise Carré, Ph.D.
Director of Research
francoise.carre@umb.edu
617-287-5516

Françoise Carré is an expert on labor economics and industrial relations, specializing in socio economic inequality, work transformation, and temporary work. She currently is conducting a study of alternative, community-based, job brokers funded by the C. S. Mott Foundation as well as an exploratory study of entry-level jobs in retail trade funded by the Russell Sage Foundation. Previous works at the Center include the National Study of Alternative Staffing Services, sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Publications include: "Looking for Leverage in a Fluid World: Innovative Responses to Temporary and Contract Work" with P. Joshi in F. Carré, M. A. Ferber, L. Golden, and S. Herzenberg, eds. Nonstandard Work: The Nature and Challenge of Changing Employment Arrangements (IRRA/Cornell University Press, 2000) and "Nonstandard Work Arrangements in France and the United States" in S. Houseman and M. Osawa, eds. Non-standard Work Arrangements in Japan, Europe, and the United States. (Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2003.) She previously served as research director at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. She also is an Affiliated Fellow, Center for Women and Work, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick. Dr. Carré holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and received her Ph.D. from the Department of Urban Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Recent Center Work: The Retail Workforce in a Changing Competitive Landscape: the University of Massachusetts Retail Study; Bridging the Gaps; The Impacts of Enhanced Marketing and Sales Capacity on Alternative Staffing; Looking Back & Looking Ahead

Sheila A. D'Alessandro
Director of Operations
sheila.dalessandro@umb.edu
617-287-3976

Sheila D'Alessandro oversees daily operations and the development of unrestricted funds to support the Center. Sheila's background is in organizational operations, including financial/budgetary and grants management, client/project management, personnel administration, facilities, and vendor contracts. She brings to the Center over 25 years of experience in operations, from both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Prior to CSP, she served as Vice President of Operations for Generation Ventures Associates, an international power generation services firm, and also served for several years on the Board of a local non-profit working with their development/fund raising efforts. 

Brandynn Holgate, M.B.A.
Graduate Research Assistant

Brandynn is a graduate assistant at the center and works on the Mott Foundation and Retail Trade studies. She has worked for the past 12 years in community-based adult services. She received her Masters of Business Administration from UMass Boston and her BA in Sociology from the University of California, Davis. Brandynn is currently enrolled in the Public Policy Ph.D. program at UMass Boston. Recent Center Work: Addressing Food and Nutrition; Technology Goes Home.

Michelle Kahan, M.M.H.S.
Senior Research Associate
michelle.kahan@umb.edu
617-287-5529

Michelle Kahan manages numerous research and evaluation projects. Her work includes management of an evaluation of several educational support programs for homeless families; analysis of CSPTech data; research on trends in demand for emergency services statewide; and research on the effects of welfare reform on nonprofit organizations. Michelle has extensive experience working with nonprofit and public organizations on issues of homelessness and family violence. She is formerly a nonprofit management consultant, as well as an executive director and staff member at family shelter and battered women's service organizations. She received her M.M.H.S. from the Heller School at Brandeis University and is currently a doctoral candidate in UMass Boston's Ph.D. Program in Public Policy. Recent Center Work:  Technology Goes Home; Making Connections; One Family; HMIS Implementation Guide; Food Stamps

Mandira Kala, M.S.W.
Graduate Research Assistant
mandira.kala@umb.edu
617-287-5557

Mandira is a graduate assistant at the Center and works on the Homeless Prevention Initiative (HPI) Evaluation and Alternative Staffing Demonstration. With a Masters Degree in Social Work, Mandira has worked extensively on issues of elementary education in public schools of rural India. Her areas of interest are deliberative democracy, governance and accountability in the context of human development and she is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Public Policy at UMass Boston's McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies. Recent Center Work: Homeless Prevention; Alternative Staffing

Helen Levine, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate
helenjlevine@comcast.net
617-916-9171

Helen Levine received her Ph.D. in sociology from Boston College. She was an Associate Professor at the Heller School, Brandeis University for many years and, more recently, a Senior Research Scientist at John Snow, Inc. Working in health services research for over twenty years, her special areas of interest include substance abuse, organ donation, and disability. She is an author of numerous papers, most recently reports about the national substance abuse treatment system, methadone treatment, and access to substance abuse treatment on Cape Cod and the Islands. She has taught undergraduates and graduates introductory sociology, quantitative and qualitative research methods, survey research, research design, and the social consequences of substance abuse. Recent Center Work: Homeless Prevention; Alternative Staffing.

Jennifer Raymond, M.S.
Senior Research Associate
Jennifer.Raymond@umb.edu
617-287-3964

Jennifer Raymond is the project manager of the Homeless Prevention Initiative Evaluation; and works on the Rental Assistance and Job Location project. She has contributed to the CSPTech HMIS Project and provided technical assistance under contract to HUD. Recently, Jennifer conducted research and evaluation on topics such as Food Stamps, homelessness and education supports for low income women. She earned her B.A in Psychology from Boston University in 1994 and a certificate in Women in Politics and Government from UMass Boston in 2000. Jennifer is currently a doctoral student in the Ph.D. in Public Policy program at UMass Boston. Recent Center Work:  One Family; MassCap; HUD New England Region HMIS; Homeless Prevention, Rental Assistance and Job Location

Julia Tripp
Constituent Coordinator; Consultant
Julia.Tripp@umb.edu
617-287-5561

Julia Tripp works as a Constituent Coordinator with the Center. She began her work with the Center as a consultant in 2000. She is responsible for carrying out the Center's constituent involvement activities, educating the external community about constituent involvement; and working as a research assistant on Center applied research and evaluation projects. Under the HUD National HMIS Technical Assistance project, Julia developed the curriculum on Consumer Involvement in HMIS and trained over 40 communities across the country on this topic. She is also an HIV/AIDS educator; board member for the National Coalition for the Homeless, as well as other boards and planning committees. She also works part-time as a Program Associate with Advocates for Human Potential under the Projects for Assistance in Transitioning out of Homelessness (PATH) to which she brings her understanding of engaging chronically homeless and other challenged populations. Julia is studying for her Bachelor's degree at UMass Boston, and produces and directs the Bring America Home Theatre Project. Recent Center Work:  Constitent Involvement in HMIS; Homeless Prevention

Elaine Werby, M.S.W.
Special Assistant to the Director
elaine.werby@umb.edu
617-287-5542

Elaine Werby manages special projects for the Center, including the strategic planning process and development of the Advisory Board. Her recent research includes utilization of food stamps in Massachusetts, trends in demand for emergency services in the state, and research on the effects of welfare reform on nonprofit organizations. She has also been involved in a number of major housing studies. A former Associate Professor in the College of Public and Community Service at UMass Boston, she has a long history of working with housing agencies and groups and consulting with community-based organizations. Elaine is also a  McCormack Graduate School Senior Fellow. Recent Center Work:  MassCAP; Food Stamps; Beyond Access; After Welfare Reform; One Step Forward, Two Steps Back; Latino Participation in Food Assistnce Programs

Dorie Seavey, Ph.D.
Visiting Research Fellow

Dorie Seavey is an independent labor economist and consultant with expertise in issues for low-income families and individuals, including low-wage temporary and contingent work, employment and training for low-income job seekers, and workforce development issues for front-line health care and social service workers. She was a senior member of the National Study of Alternative Staffing Services. She also served as a senior member of an evaluation team at Public/Private V entures investigating the four-year Sectoral Employment Initiative of the Charles Stuart Mott Foundation. Seavey is a former Senior Research Scientist at the Heller School of Social Policy at Brandeis University, where she directed the Food Security Institute. Seavey’s consulting engagements also have included the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College, Jobs for the Future, the Center for Community Change, SEIU Local 509, the AARP Foundation, and the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. Recent Center Work:  Sales and Marketing of Alternative Staffing