Our Affiliates

Lotte Bailyn is Professor of Management and T Wilson (1953) Professor of Management emerita at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Professor Bailyn's research deals with the relation of organizational practice to employees' personal lives, with a particular emphasis on gender equity in business organizations and academia. Among her publications are Breaking the Mold: Women, Men, and Time in the New Corporate World (Free Press, 1993) and its new and fully revised edition Breaking the Mold: Redesigning Work for Productive and Satisfying Lives (Cornell, 2006), and Beyond Work-Family Balance: Advancing Gender Equity and Workplace Performance (Jossey-Bass, 2002), of which she is a co-author.

Dr. Yvonne Benschop is a CGO Affiliate and Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University Nijmegen. Her main inspirations are feminist organization theories and critical management studies. Her current research interests involve gender in networking and impression management, and the dynamics of gender and diversity change in organizations. Publications on these subjects appeared in journals like Organization Studies, Organization, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Human Relations, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Gender, Work and Organization and the Journal of Organizational Change Management.

Yvonne is an associate editor for Organization and for Gender, Work and Organization, and is on the editorial boards of several other journals. She participated in and was in charge of various projects on gender mainstreaming in HRM, on gender practices in the recruitment and selection of top police officers, and on the ambition of part-timers. She is a regular speaker at business conferences on gender and diversity management, and is involved in consultancy projects in this area. Yvonne obtained her PhD in management science in 1196 from Radboud University Nijmegen and holds a Masters degree in Political Science and a Masters degree in Administration and Policy Sciences. She is affiliated with the Institute of Gender Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen.

Hannah Riley Bowles is a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Visiting Associate Professor at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Her research illuminates ways that gender and other status-linked identities, such as race, influence career opportunities and rewards. For instance, she has several publications explaining how gender effects in negotiation contribute to the gender gaps in pay and leadership positions. Her research appears in academic publications, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Psychological Science, and Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. Her scholarship and teaching have been publicized in U.S. and overseas news media, including research profiles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and ABC News Good Morning America.

She currently teaches executive education for women in leadership and courses in management and leadership. She has developed numerous case studies on leadership in crisis and multi-party conflict. She won the Harvard Kennedy School's 2003 Manuel Carballo Award for Excellence in Teaching. Earlier in her career, she was a technical advisor to the Minister of Natural Resources, Energy & Mines of Costa Rica. She has been a research associate at the Conflict Management Group and Harvard Business School and a research fellow in the Argentinean National Institute of Public Administration, the West German Parliament, and Oxford University's Forestry Institute. She has a DBA from Harvard Business School, MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, and BA from Smith College.

Gelaye Debebe is Assistant Professor of Organizational Sciences at the George Washington University and an Affiliate of the Center for Gender in Organizations at Simmons Graduate School of Business. She holds a BS in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland, an MS from the American University, and a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the University of Michigan. 

Her research has examined issues related to learning in organizations in the context of women's leadership development and cross-cultural collaborations. Her published work has appeared in Research in Organizational Behavior, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Human Resources Development International, Issues in Intercultural Communication and Development in Practice. She is also author of a forthcoming book entitled: Three Transformative Pathways to Leadership Effectiveness for Women.

Robin Ely is Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She investigates how organizations can better manage their race and gender relations while at the same time increasing their effectiveness. Her research in this area focuses on organizational change, group dynamics, learning, conflict, power, and social identity. Robin also teaches in Harvard's Executive Education programs, the IWF Leadership Foundation Fellow Program, and the Women's Leadership Forum.

Robin has published numerous articles on these topics in books and journals and lectures both in the US and abroad to academics and practitioners alike. She frequently consults to organizations in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors on issues related to race, gender, and organizational change. She has taught courses in leadership, teams, group dynamics, power and influence, and statistics, with a special emphasis on race, ethnicity, and gender relations as relations of power. Most recently, she has studied men and masculinity on offshore oil platforms and investigated the effects of racial diversity on performance in retail banking. She is currently conducting a study of senior women's experiences of power and authority in professional service firms.

For the past several years, Robin has maintained an active faculty affiliation at the Center for Gender in Organizations, Simmons Graduate School of Business, in Boston. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard Business School, Robin was at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, and at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Yale University, completed the doctoral coursework in Social Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, and received her bachelors degree from Smith College. Robin is a member of the Academy of Management and an Associate Editor of Administrative Science Quarterly.

Prof. Foldy is an Associate Professor of Public and Nonprofit Management at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. She is affiliated faculty with the Research Center for Leadership in Action, based at Wagner, and with the Center for Gender in Organizations at the Simmons School of Business in Boston.

Prof. Foldy's research addresses the question: What enables and inhibits working and learning together across potential divisions like race and gender? She is interested in how cognitive processes, like framing and sensemaking, affect our ability to connect with others, and how leaders act as "sensegivers" to affect their constituents' capacity for joint work.

Prof. Foldy has published articles in a variety of journals and edited volumes, including Leadership Quarterly, Academy of Management Learning and Education, and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. She also co-edited, with Robin Ely and Maureen Scully, the Reader in Gender, Work and Organization.

Prior to her Ph.D. program, Prof. Foldy worked for 15 years with non-profit organizations addressing foreign policy, women's rights, and occupational health and safety. She has consulted on strategic planning and organization development to a wide range of non-profit groups. She holds a BA from Harvard College and a PhD from Boston College. She was a Post Doctoral Fellow at Harvard Business School in 2002-03. During the 2007-08 academic year, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.

Evangelina Holvino is President of Chaos Management, Ltd., a consulting partnership providing organizational solutions for collaborative, equitable, and participatory work through consultations, facilitation and education. She designs and facilitates change interventions in four areas: Diversity, equality and inclusion strategies; Group visioning and problem solving for organization and community change; Leadership and career development for Latino/as and women of color; and Building internal capacity and resources for change. Some of her past clients include Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Verizon, TJX Companies, Lucent Technologies, J.P. Morgan Chase, Chiquita Brands, the University of Vermont Diversity and Equity Unit, the Latino Institute, Pathfinder International and the World Bank. In the last thirty years she has delivered programs in the United States, Africa, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Dr. Holvino received her doctorate degree in organizational development from the University of Massachusetts and has taught at the School for International Training, the University of Massachusetts and at The American University/NTL Master's in Organization Development. Her current research and writing focus on the intersections of race-ethnicity, gender, class and other social differences and the opportunities and challenges these differences create in organizations. Combining her organizational experience and research practice, Dr. Holvino frequently speaks and conducts seminars on topics such as: The simultaneity of differences and identity; Latino/a Cultural Scripts and their leadership effects; The what, why and how of diversity in organizations; and Complicating gender: Women learning to work with their social differences.

Dr. Holvino is a 2005 recipient of the Anna Maria Arias award for Latina entrepreneurship. She is a member and previously served on the board of directors of the Boston Center of the A.K. Rice Institute and the NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Sciences. She currently serves on the advisory board of the Diversity Factor and the Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council of Novartis.

Ronit Kark is a Tenured Senior Lecturer of Organizational Studies in the Department of Psychology at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. Dr. Kark received her Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and completed her postdoctoral studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She was also a visiting professor at the University of Queensland in Australia (QU), at New York University (NYU), Boston College (BC) and the Center for Gender in Organizations at Simmons (CGO). Her research examines the gendered aspects of leadership and the challenges and opportunities women face in leadership and management at the individual and organizational level. Her research in this area focuses on positive relationships and relatedness in organizations, identity and identification processes, power, gender dynamics in organizations and the role of "play" and creativity at work.

Ronit is the founder and first director of the Graduate Program ‘Gender in the Field: Translating Feminist Theory into Social Action' in the Gender Studies Department at Bar-Ilan University, a program which links theory with action, practice and community. She received the Loreal-Rekanati Prize for the Study of Women and Management in Israel for her doctoral dissertation. In 2005 she was awarded the Best Paper Prize at the International Leadership Association (ILA) and in 2012 she received the Academy of Management Award for the Scholarly Contributions to Educational Practice Advancing Women in Leadership (sponsored by the Center for Gender in Organizations, Simmons Graduate School of Business, in Boston).

Her work has been published in various leading journals, including The Academy of Management Review, The Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Organization, Journal of Organization Change Management and Journal of Applied Psychology. She is on the editorial boards of The Leadership Quarterly, The International Journal of Management Review and The Academy of Management Review.

Ronit also has extensive experience as a senior management consultant and an organizational psychologist. Over the years she has consulted to and worked internationally with many different types of organizations in the public, private and non-profit sector (NGOs) on diverse types of projects related to advancing leadership responsibility and gender and minority equality. She serves voluntarily on the advisory committees and boards of different NGOs in Israel that aim to enhance social change and equality (e.g., The Abraham Fund for Jewish-Arab Co-existence, Studio of Her Own, Women's Leadership in Business and Women in the Film, Jerusalem Women Business Owners Forum and OFEk-The Israeli Group Relations Tavistock Organization).

Jill R. Kickul is the Director of the Stewart Satter Program in Entrepreneurship in the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at New York University Stern School of Business. In her faculty position, Professor Kickul teaches courses in both entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. Her primary research areas of interest include innovation and strategic processes within new ventures, micro-financing practices and wealth creation in transitioning economies, and more recently, social entrepreneurship. 

Professor Kickul is the author of Entrepreneurship Strategy: Changing Patterns in New Venture Creation, Growth, and Reinvention (Sage Publishing). Professor Kickul has published more than 70 publications in entrepreneurship and management journals. Before joining NYU, Dr. Kickul was the Richard A. Forsythe Chair in Entrepreneurship in the Thomas C. Page Center for Entrepreneurship at Miami University (Ohio) and a Professor in the Management Department in the Farmer School of Business. Prior to joining the Miami University faculty, she was the Elizabeth J. McCandless Professor in Entrepreneurship at the Simmons School of Business. 

She has also taught entrepreneurship internationally for the Helsinki School of Economics and for the International Bank of Asia (Hong Kong MBA Program), and has delivered research seminars at the Stockholm School of Economics, the EM Lyon School of Business, the Aarhus Center for Organizational Renewal and Evolution (CORE, Denmark), and the Jönköping International Business School (Sweden). Her work on entrepreneurship education development and curriculum design (Simmons School of Business) has been nationally recognized and supported through the Coleman Foundation Entrepreneurship Excellence in Teaching Colleges Grant and was been named by Fortune Small Business as one of the Top 10 Innovative Programs in Entrepreneurship Education. Dr. Kickul has held a number of leadership positions in various well-respected entrepreneurship and management associations. Dr. Kickul also participates on a number of boards/organizations, most notably the European Microfinance Network (EMN) and is an Affiliate of the Center for Gender and Organizations (CGO).

Michelle Kweder is an independent researcher, and consultant to mission-driven organizations. Kweder holds a BA in English and Women’s Studies from Hamilton College, a MBA from Simmons School of Business, and a PhD in Business Administration, Organizations and Social Change from the University of Massachusetts – Boston. Prior to pursuing an academic career and joining Simmons, she held leadership positions in both the non-profit and public sectors. 

She has over 20 years of professional experience, including as development director for two community health centers, as executive director at a domestic violence agency, and in the Boston Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Relations. In 2007, she began her own consulting practice and continues effectiveness, and community-centered outcomes. Kweder’s other areas of study and interest include pedagogy in leadership and management education, NGO and social justice careers, NGO management, issues of intersectionality in organizational contexts, and qualitative and transdisciplinary research methods.

Deborah Merrill-Sands is an authority on women and leadership and gender dynamics in the workplace. More recently her work has focused on the areas of ethics, corporate responsibility, and sustainability. She is currently Dean of the Larry I. Lokey Graduate School of Business at Mills College.

Merrill-Sands, an expert on women's workforce issues, was Dean of the Simmons School of Business in Boston for six years, where she led the School to achieve accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), integrated attention to corporate responsibility and sustainability, earned national rankings in areas central to its mission, and received national recognition for its executive development programs for women. She co-founded the Center for Gender in Organizations with CGO Distinguished Scholar Deborah Kolb. Prior to joining the Simmons School of Business, Merrill-Sands worked with the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, and the United Nations, working on increasing the role of women in science, and led international teams to address the livelihood of rural poor women and families in developing countries.

Merrill-Sands is the author of numerous monographs, journal articles, and book chapters, most focusing on diversity and gender issues in the workplace. She received her MA and Ph.D. in applied anthropology from Cornell University, and her BA from Hampshire College. She has received numerous prestigious fellowships and grants from the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Fulbright Hays, and the Social Science Research Council.

Simmons Professor Emerita Lynda Moore has focused her research, consulting, and teaching on the leadership and advancement of women and the development of culturally competent leaders for almost 40 years. Her articles appeared in numerous academic journals and international and national conference proceedings. Her edited book Not as Far as You Think was an early and influential text that examined the theory and practice of women in management.

Professor Moore was an active participant and national leader in academic and professional organizations committed to the understanding and advancement of women leaders. Moore was in the vanguard in the 1980’s and 90’s as the founding consultant and acting director of the Radcliffe Public Policy Institute at Harvard University, Co-Director of the Institute for Women and Organizations, and Chair of the Women in Management Division of the Academy of Management. She ran the first international Conference on Women and Organizations at Simmons in 1983.

Other areas of research and study included women's leadership education and the development of culturally sensitive and indigenous leadership models with particular emphasis on the role of gender. She co-edited a ten volume Compendium on Global Family Business Models that analyzed the impact of culture on models of family business around the world. She was among the first academics to receive certification for administration and interpretation of the Global Mindset Inventory.

Moore was a pioneer in gender and leadership, global and cross-cultural research and curriculum development. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to teach and study women leaders in the United Arab Emirates and published one of the first studies of top Emerati women leaders. Other international research evaluated the impact of a customized corporate women’s leadership program in a global services firm in the UK.

Courses designed by Moore while at Simmons University include the first undergraduate business school course on women and leadership in the United States; an interdisciplinary graduate course on globalization and diversity, and the School of Business' first study abroad course, which provided a cross cultural comparative analysis of women leaders. She has led study travel tours to India and the United Arab Emirates. Professor Moore designed and taught undergraduate, graduate and executive courses focusing on diversity, gender, and culturally intelligent leadership. She is a faculty affiliate of the school's Center for Gender and Organizations, a Fellow of the Leadership Trust Foundation, UK, and has taught at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Audrey J. Murrell conducts research, teaching and consulting that helps organizations better utilize and engage their most important assets — their human and social capital. She is an Associate Professor of Business Administration, Psychology, Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh Katz/CBA School of Business and Director of the David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership. 

Professor Murrell conducts research on mentoring, careers in organizations, workforce/supplier diversity, and social issues in management. Audrey has received numerous recognitions including the SBA Minority Business Advocate of the Year, University of Pittsburgh Student Choice Award, "Women of Distinction" award from the Girls Scouts of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Susan B. Anthony "Women of Vision" award from the Women's Leadership Assembly, and the Chancellor's Distinguished Public and Community Service Award from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Murrell is the author (along with Crosby and Ely) of the book entitled, Mentoring Dilemmas: Developmental Relationships within Multicultural Organizations published by McGraw-Hill, and the recently published book (along with Forte-Trummel and Bing) entitled, "Intelligent Mentoring: How IBM Adds Value through People, Knowledge and Relationships" published by Pearson Education Group.

Karen Proudford is a CGO Affiliate at the Center for Gender in Organizations. Karen joined CGO as a Senior Research Fellow in 2000 and worked with CGO on its theme of "building alliances across differences." She is also Associate Professor of Management at the Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management, Morgan State University, where she teaches courses in organizational behavior, human resource management and related disciplines. Her research interests include group and intergroup dynamics, diversity and conflict. Karen has also written about the experiences of black female managers and about coalition-building efforts between white and black women. She is currently working on research that examines the conditions under which women rise to leadership positions in U.S. organizations. 

She is particularly interested in the social networks of female managers, with an emphasis on the risks and rewards of building relationships with influential others who differ by race, gender, culture and the like. Karen has consulted to public and private organizations. She has coached executives from around the world at Wharton Executive Education Center, concentrating on issues of leadership, organizational change, conflict resolution, and motivation. In addition, she has delivered lectures on the challenges of managing organizational development and growth to executives from South Africa and Slovakia. Karen received her B.S. degree in Accounting summa cum laude from Florida A&M University and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to beginning her career in academia, she held positions at Honeywell, Inc. and IBM.

Lakshmi Ramarajan is an Assistant Professor in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. Her research examines the management and consequences of identities in organizations.

Lakshmi's research examines how people can work fruitfully across social divides, with a particular emphasis on identities, group boundaries and intergroup relations. Her research asks two broad questions related to bridging differences across multiple identities and group boundaries: 1) What are the effects of managing multiple identities on interpersonal and intergroup relations? and 2) How do organizational and intergroup boundaries influence individuals' multiple identities and intergroup relationships? In recent work she examines how individuals' manage their organizational, ethnic, religious and national identities, and how these identities interact to influence interpersonal problem solving and prosocial attitudes and behavior.

Lakshmi earned her B.A. (Honors) in International Relations from Wellesley College, her M.Sc. in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and her PhD in Management from The Wharton School of Business. She was awarded the State Farm Foundation Dissertation Proposal Award in 2008. She was a Post Doctoral Fellow at Harvard Business School from 2008 to 2010.

Prior to her academic career, Lakshmi worked in international development, managing conflict resolution programs in West Africa with a focus on gender and workforce development. She was also a professional dancer for several years.

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts is an author, professor, researcher and organizational consultant. As Professor of Psychology, Culture and Organization Studies, she is a Core Faculty member of Antioch University's Ph.D. in Leadership and Change program. Dr. Roberts has also served on the faculties of the Harvard Business School, University of Michigan, Wharton School, Simmons School of Business and Georgia State University. She is also a faculty affiliate of the AVT Business School (Copenhagen, Denmark), the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship (University of Michigan), and the Center for Gender in Organizations (Simmons School of Business). Dr. Roberts has earned accolades for her executive, MBA, and undergraduate business and psychology courses in leadership, organizational behavior, group dynamics, talent management, diversity and negotiations in the United States, Europe and Africa.

Dr. Roberts is an architect of personal and professional alignment, who helps leaders to unlock the pathways for constructing, sustaining and restoring positive identities at work. She has published her work on authenticity, identity, diversity, strengths, and value creation in her edited book, Exploring Positive Identities and Organizations (Roberts & Dutton, Eds.) and articles, book chapters, and case studies. She is also the co-founder and Principal of R-PAQ Solutions, LLC, an Atlanta-based research and consulting firm that brings strength-based practices to leaders who seek extraordinary performance and personal fulfillment.

A native of Gary, Indiana, Dr. Roberts earned her BA in Psychology with highest distinction and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Virginia. She then received her MA and Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from the University of Michigan.

Scully is a CGO Affiliate at the Center for Gender in Organizations and Associate Professor in Management at University of Massachusetts-Boston. She also serves as Research Associate for the Initiative for Social Innovation through Business (ISIB) at the Aspen Institute. Her research addresses how the ideal of meritocracy can make inequality in organizations appear as a legitimate outcome of a fair advancement contest. She also focuses on employee caucus groups and diversity in work organizations. Before coming to CGO, 

Maureen was on the faculty at the MIT Sloan School of Business and a Fellow in the Program on Ethics and the Professions at Harvard University. She has designed and taught courses on human resource management and organizational behavior. She has also consulted with joint labor/management teams to find collaborative pathways to participation, teamwork, and respect for workers across classes. She is the co-author of Managing for the Future: Organizational Behavior and Processes (Southwestern, 2nd edition, 1999). She is currently working on a book, Luck, Pluck, or Merit? How Americans Make Sense of Inequality (forthcoming). She earned her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University.