Biographies of FWI Officers and Staff

Ellen Galinsky, President and Co-Founder of Families and Work Institute (FWI) helped establish the field of work and family life during the time she was at Bank Street College of Education, where she was on the faculty for twenty-five years. Her more than forty-five books and reports include the best selling Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs, Ask The Children, the now classic The Six Stages of Parenthood and the highly acclaimed Workflex: The Essential Guide to Effective and Flexible Workplaces. She has published over 125 articles in academic journals, books and magazines. At the Institute, Ms. Galinsky co-directs the National Study of the Changing Workforce, the most comprehensive nationally representative study of the U.S. workforce—updated every five years and originally conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor in the 1977. She also co-directs When Work Works, a project on workplace flexibility and effectiveness first funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that has produced a series of research papers, and has launched the Sloan Awards as well as conducted the National Study of Employers, a nationally representative study that has tracked trends in employment benefits, policies and practices since 1998. Information from FWI’s research has been reported in the media more than three times a day since January 2010. In 2011, the Society for Human Resource Management and the Families and Work Institute formed a ground-breaking, multi-year partnership that takes When Work Works out to businesses around the country.

At FWI, Mind in the Making (MITM) is an unprecedented effort to share the science of children’s learning with the general public, families and professionals who work with them. Based on Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs (HarperCollins, 2010) by Ellen Galinsky, its mission is to promote Executive Function Life Skills in adults and through them in children in order to keep the fire for learning burning brightly in all of us. Projects include: Learning Modules for Teachers (in English/Spanish) that have been implemented in ten states; Seven Essential Skills Learning Modules (in English/Spanish) that are being implemented in six communities through community schools with funding with the WFFK Kellogg Foundation in partnership with the Institute for Educational Leadership and in an additional eight communities/systems; a DVD collection of 42 videos showing important experiments in child development research; Prescriptions for Learning—downloadable tips sheets for pediatricians and health care professionals on frequently asked questions by families that show how to turn behavior problems into learning opportunities; and a partnership with First Book where we have created a library of children’s books and accompanying tips to promote life skills. Mind in the Making has sold more than 100,000 copies and had more than 1.5 billion media impressions since April 2010.

A leading authority on work family issues, Ms. Galinsky was a presenter at the 2000 White House Conference on Teenagers and the 1997 White House Conference on Child Care. She was a planner and participant at the March 2010 White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility and worked with the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor on the Regional Forums on flexibility that continued the work of the White House Forum. She served as the elected President of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the largest professional group of early childhood educators. Ellen Galinsky is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2004 Distinguished Achievement Award from Vassar College and the Seven Wonders of the Work Life World from Working Mother Magazine. She was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources in 2005. She is also the recipient of the 2014 Friend of Children Award granted by the Board of Directors of the Southern Early Childhood Association.

A popular keynote speaker, she appears regularly at national conferences, on television and in the media, including the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, World News Tonight and Oprah. Ms. Galinsky holds a Master of Science degree in Child Development/Education from Bank Street College of Education, a Bachelor of Arts degree in Child Study from Vassar College and numerous honorary doctoral degrees.

Ms. Galinsky is also a photographer. The latest shows of her photography were at the New York Hall of Science (2006 and 2012), UMA Gallery in New York City (2004 and 2007), RiverWinds Gallery in Beacon, New York (2008), GaGa in Rockland County, New York (2009), Blue Door in Yonkers, New York (2012 and 2013), Upstream Gallery in Dobbs Ferry, New York (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013), Outside In in Piermont, New York (2013), and Blue Hill (2013).

Ellen Galinsky is married to artist Norman Galinsky, and they are the parents of two grown children: Philip, an ethnomusicologist and founder-director of Samba New York—an inspiring new performance group—and Lara, Senior Vice President at Echoing Green—whose mission is to unleash the next generation of talent to solve the world’s biggest problems—and co-author of Be Bold and author of Work on Purpose.

Terry Bond is Senior Advisor at Families and Work Institute. In addition to providing technical advice on research design and data analysis to all major research projects of the Institute, he has day-to-day responsibility for the Institute's work life research program. Included in this area are the National Study of the Changing Workforce and the National Study of Employers. Every five years, the former surveys nationally representative samples of employees and the latter surveys nationally representative samples of employers.

Before joining Families and Work Institute, Mr. Bond was Deputy Director of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University where he helped develop the program work of the new center, including public policy analysis and field-based research concerned with maternal and child health, early care and education, service integration, welfare reform, and the demographics of child and family poverty. Prior to joining the Center at Columbia University, he was founding Director of the National Council of Jewish Women's Center for the Child, where he developed and managed research and action projects focused on work-family issues, family child care, child welfare, and parenting education. Before joining the Center for the Child, he was Director of Research at the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, where he was involved in longitudinal research on the Perry Preschool Project, Head Start, and other early childhood programs for economically disadvantaged children, as well as applied research related to special-needs children, family support programs, and child and family literacy.

Mr. Bond has shared the authorship of numerous FWI publications including Youth and Employment: What Do Young People Expect From the World of Work? , the 2005 National Study of Employers , the 2002 and the 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce , Beyond the Parental Leave Debate: The Impact of Laws in Four States, "The Effects of Childbearing on Women's Employment" in Parental Leave and Productivity, and The Changing Workforce: Highlights of the 1992 National Study. Other recent publications for which he had joint or sole authorship include "Single parents in the wage and salaried labor force" in the American Compensation Association Journal, "Work and family: The experiences of mothers and fathers in the U.S. labor force" in The American Woman 1996-97, "Parents at work: Work-family conflict stress, and coping" in Children, Families, and Stress, and three reports written in November 2006 for The Supporting Work Project.

Terry Bond completed both his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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John Boose is the Art Director at Families and Work Institute. He designs, formats and oversees the printing of all FWI materials. He also designs, builds and manages the Institute’s Web sites. He has been with the Institute for over ten years.

Mr. Boose also does freelance graphic design, is a musician and received a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Connecticut College.

John Boose is originally from New York City and currently resides there with his family.

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Carol Bryce-Buchanan is the Director of Development at Families and Work Institute, and oversees FWI's Corporate Leadership Circle (CLC), Board of Directors and all grants, contracts and contributions. She designs the CLC Conference Calls, Webinars and Briefings and maintains ongoing relationships with over 70 Fortune 500 and 1,000 companies. Ms. Bryce-Buchanan has a special interest in women’s leadership in business. She contributed to FWI’s recent publication with The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Workflex: The Essential Guide to Effective and Flexible Workplaces, and is part of the team that develops FWI’s annual WorkFlex conference with SHRM. She presents and gives keynote addresses on FWI’s behalf in the U.S. and Canada, was part of an international expert resource group which helped the United Nations further their workplace flexibility and women’s initiatives as part of UN Women and helped to create the work life curriculum for the inaugural Ms. Foundation "Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day." Along with Ellen Galinsky, Ms. Bryce-Buchanan is responsible for FWI's signature annual event, the Work Life Legacy Award, which documents the history of the work life movement and honors those who have made extraordinary contributions to its development. She is also part of the team that oversees the Work Life Legacy Military Awards, inaugurated in 2012 to increase best practices that employers can adopt to help service men and women, veterans and their families in the transition into the civilian workforce.

Prior to joining FWI in 1999, Ms. Bryce-Buchanan worked in Development in arts and educational institutions and held research and senior administrative positions at Yale University Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, New York Medical College, The Montreal General Hospital and The Montreal Children's Hospital. She currently co-chairs the Advisory Council of New York Live Arts, a merger of Dance Theatre Workshop (DTW) and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, and serves on the Board Development Committee. In 2007 she was awarded DTW’s MOVE (Motivating Ongoing Vision and Excellence) Award for her pivotal role in building the organization over 20 years. She also serves on the Board of the Reggie Wilson/ Fist and Heel Performance Group.

Ms. Bryce-Buchanan is a member of the Alliance for Work Life Progress (AWLP) and the National Association of Female Executives (NAFE), is active in community affairs, serves on the Spence School Parents of Alumni Steering Committee and is a former Director of The Allen-Stevenson School.

Carol Bryce-Buchanan holds a B.Sc. degree from McGill and an M.A. from Concordia University (Canada); both in Developmental Psychology. She raised her family and lives in Manhattan.

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Zon-Wei Cheng is the When Work Works Program Manager at Families and Work Institute. She co-manages the When Work Works initiative and Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) at Families and Work Institute.

Prior to joining FWI, Ms. Cheng was the Director of Program Logistics, Publications-Sales Database Manager, and Membership Manager of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) – Corporate office, where she was awarded the AAA President's Honoree Award for Living the Values: Service, Integrity & Conflict Management. During her time at AAA, she oversaw national and international training and conference logistics; collaborated with Finance staff to create national financial forms, procedures and policies that were implemented in 20+ offices; and created a user-friendly membership benefit chart for sales staff. She was also the Director of Meetings and Membership at the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America where she was awarded the NCBFAA Certificate of Appreciation.

Zon-Wei received the New Star Award from New York Society of Association Executives (NYSAE), which recognizes significant contributions from a new member. She is currently serving on NYSAE’s educational committee.

Ms. Cheng was a business and English double major and graduated cum laude from Skidmore College with a B.S. degree. She also completed the Meeting & Conference Management Certificate program from New York University-School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

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Marline Griffith is a multi-functional Coordinator at Families and Work Institute. She manages the Publications Department, coordinates speaking events, and provides operations, administrative and reception support.

A native of Oxfordshire, England, Ms. Griffith has been with the Institute since 1999. Prior to joining FWI, she held a mail processing position with the United States Postal Service.

Marline Griffith graduated from CUNY Graduate School and University Center with a Bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and teenage daughter.

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Tony Kolasa is the Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary of Families and Work Institute. As a member of the Institute’s senior leadership team, Tony’s responsibilities include overseeing all of the accounting and financial functions at the Institute; developing, managing and implementing strategic partnership alliances and revenue streams; and managing contracts with independent contractors and sub-contractors.

Prior to joining the Institute in November 2010, Tony was a Partner with the Big Four CPA firm of Ernst & Young. At Ernst & Young, Tony’s primary focus was working with senior financial executives of not-for-profit organizations of all sizes, dealing with financial, accounting and tax issues. During his career at Ernst & Young, Tony also was an adjunct professor of accounting in the evenings at Rutgers University and Middlesex County College.

Tony received his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with an Accounting major from Villanova University. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants, and holds a CPA license in both New York and New Jersey. Tony lives in New Jersey with his wife Peggy, has two sons and a daughter, and six grandchildren.

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Kenneth Matos, Ph.D., is Senior Director of Employment Research and Practice at Families and Work Institute and serves as a member of the senior leadership team. He conducts research on a wide range of workforce and workplace issues, including diversity, mentoring, work-life fit, and workplace effectiveness. His responsibilities include identifying emerging employment issues and trends, conducting analyses, writing reports and speaking on the findings from the Families and Work Institute’s ongoing nationally representative studies—the National Study of Employers and the National Study of the Changing Workforce. He also co-directs When Work Works, a project on workplace flexibility and effectiveness, in collaboration with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). When Work Works sponsors the Sloan Awards for Effective and Flexible Workplaces, which recognizes employers for providing workplaces that are beneficial to both employers and employees.

Prior to joining FWI, Dr. Matos worked for the Department of Defense (DoD), where he developed, implemented, and analyzed surveys of members of the U.S. military, their families and related constituencies. His research for the DoD has examined issues of racial-ethnic harassment and discrimination, mentoring, and work satisfaction among military members and DoD civilian personnel. His work has been presented to Congress and various military policy offices. He has co-authored book chapters and research papers on best practices in diversity management, the effect of mentoring in the military, and the impact of deployments on military families.

He completed his undergraduate work in Psychology at Amherst College, received his master’s in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and earned his Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the George Washington University.

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Barbara Norcia-Broms is Development Associate at Families and Work Institute (formerly Development Coordinator since 1998) and has been at FWI since 1992, joining the Institute in its early years as Executive Assistant to President Ellen Galinsky.

Ms. Norcia-Broms provides support to FWI’s Board of Directors and assists the Director of Development in interfacing with the foundations and corporations which support FWI with unrestricted funding through the Corporate Leadership Circle (CLC) (CLC conference calls and annual Circle Briefing) and the annual Work Life Legacy Award event. She also monitors deadlines for restricted project funding, works closely with FWI’s Finance Department and often serves as proof-reader and copy-editor for the Institute’s reports and publications.

Prior to joining FWI, Ms. Norcia-Broms was Assistant to the Director of Public Events for Grand Central Partnership (GCP), a business improvement district encompassing 50-blocks around Grand Central Terminal. GCP produced Manhattan’s first First Night in 1991, a New Year’s Eve day celebration of the arts. In the 80s, she worked at Bank Street College of Education—where she met Ellen Galinsky—in Development and as Assistant Secretary to the Board of Trustees.

Barbara Norcia-Broms holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Queens College (The Aaron Copeland School of Music) of CUNY, Cum Laude and is a native of Rome, Italy. She is an operatic contralto and is President and Artistic Director of Manhattan Opera Association—a small opera company which she manages with her husband, tenor Martin Broms.

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Jennie Portnof is the Mind in the Making (MITM) Project Coordinator at Families and Work Institute. She takes the lead on creating materials that are able to combine the rich MITM content with elegant and engaging electronic and print formats. She oversees the MITM website, acts as liaison to MITM Learning Communities, collaboratively implements MITM Seven Essential Skills Trainings, MITM speaking engagement and webinar content and provides support in the daily development of MITM projects, outreach, reports, proposals, and a growing range of interactive MITM resources.

While at the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with Poet and Activist Professor June Jordan and 19 other student poets, she helped create Poetry for the People — a program for the reading, writing, and teaching of poetry, political vision and moral witness that thrives today. Prior to joining Families and Work Institute, she was part of the creative/production team of network and agency trained professionals for both Nickelodeon Creative Advertising and Branding, covering content for all Nickelodeon networks and a large portfolio of external clients. She is a founding editor of Fort Necessity, a small literary magazine.She holds a MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. In addition to exhibiting her art work, she is a published poet and writer.

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Erin Ramsey is the Senior Program Director for Mind in the Making at Families and Work Institute and is responsible for the overall implementation and development of partnerships for Mind in the Making.

Ms. Ramsey has worked for over 20 years in the early childhood field and began her career as a family child care provider and preschool teacher.  She later served for 12 years as Executive Director of 4C of Southern Indiana, Inc., a child care resource and referral agency, where she developed the organization and several programs that were nationally recognized. Ms. Ramsey also served as the director of public relations for a statewide child care resource and referral agency and was the Director of Early Childhood for the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation, the third largest urban school district in Indiana.

Throughout her career, Ms. Ramsey has served on numerous national, state and local boards and initiatives to increase the awareness of the importance of early childhood education and to improve the quality and accessibility for families, professionals and communities.

She holds an undergraduate degree in Child Development and Psychology from California State University at Sacramento. She also earned a Master of Science in Public Service from the University of Evansville. 

Erin Ramsey is the mother of four children, has been happily married for 21 years, has three dogs and a cat and resides in Evansville, Indiana. She is an experienced public speaker and works to help others see their potential.

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Kelly Sakai-O'Neill is Director of Marketing and Senior Manager of Applied Research at Families and Work Institute. She has over a decade of experience in the area of work life research, communications and programming. Kelly is a founding member of the When Work Works team since the initiative launched in 2005. In this role, she has worked to create a rigourous one-of-a-kind workplace flexibility award process, using national data, employer data and employee input. Over the past eight years Kelly has helped grow the initiative from 62 applicants to now over 750 annually. Kelly has managed the Institute’s marketing efforts and websites, as well as co-authored a number reports and journal articles using FWI's data.

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Eve Tahmincioglu is the Director of Communications at Families and Work Institute. She is responsible for the overall communications effort for FWI including its research on the changing workforce and workplace and child development as well as its action-oriented projects including When Work Works, and Mind in the Making. She is also the main contact for media looking for FWI research or interviews with key Institute staff; and she’s the point person for all social media initiatives related to communications for FWI.

Ms. Tahmincioglu remains a workplace and career contributor to NBCNews.com and Today.com, where she has served as an award-winning columnist covering labor issues for both sites since 2006. She’s also the voice behind the popular CareerDiva.net blog, and author of From the Sandbox to the Corner Office: Lessons Learned on the Journey to the Top.

Ms. Tahmincioglu has more than 20 years experience as a business reporter working as a staffer for Women’s Wear Daily, UPI and the St. Petersburg Times. She was also a long-time contributor to the New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Workforce Management Magazine. Her stories have appeared in numerous national publications including theatlantic.com, Good Housekeeping, NPR’s Need to Know, Salon, Newsday, iVillage, USA Today and Time.

Her specialties as a journalist included workplace and labor issues, the small business and entrepreneurial world, social networking, retail, autos, women’s issues, and leadership, including interviews with some of the biggest names in Corporate America.

Ms. Tahmincioglu was named top online business columnist in 2009 by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers; was awarded a Jessie H. Neal National Business Journalism Award in 2005 for team small business coverage for BusinessWeek; and earned a fellowship with the Economics Institute for Journalists in 1995. In addition, she was named one of the top ten career tweeters on Twitter by CareerBuilder and CNN; and CareerBuilder and Forbes named CareerDiva.net one of the top blogs in the country.

Ms. Tahmincioglu holds an undergraduate degree in journalism from Hofstra University in Hempstead, LI. She is married to Andy D’Ambrosio and they are the parents of two young children, Circe and Cheiron.

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Anne Weisberg is the Senior Vice President for Strategy at Families and Work Institute. She is a recognized thought leader and executive who has designed innovative practices to build effective, inclusive work environments, including co-authoring the best selling Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace With Today’s Nontraditional Workforce (HBS, 2007). She directed the seminal research on women in the legal profession, Women in Law: Making the Case (Catalyst, 2001), and has authored numerous other pieces, including The Gender Dividend: Making the Business Case for Investing in Women (Deloitte, 2011), and Paths to Power: Advancing Women in Government (Deloitte, 2010), and Everything a Working Mother Needs to Know (Doubleday, 1994), a guide for women who have careers and are starting families and all the issues they face at work. She has appeared on the TODAY Show, is regularly quoted in the media, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe, and is a sought after speaker, having presented at the Conference Board, The Best Places to Work, Working Mother, Princeton University, The Wharton School, Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.

Prior to joining the Families and Work Institute, Anne worked with companies and firms to align workplaces to the changing nature of work and the workforce. As a Managing Director at The FutureWork Institute, Director of Diversity and Inclusion at BlackRock, and Director in Talent at Deloitte LLP she has designed and delivered leadership development programs for senior women, customized the business case for diversity by business area, launched global affinity groups and redesigned talent management practices, including helping to implement mass career customization for over 40,000 people at Deloitte. She joined Deloitte from Catalyst, the non-profit research and advisory organization whose mission is to change lives by changing workplaces for women. While at Catalyst, Anne directed seminal research on women in the legal profession and advised law firms, other professional services firms and Fortune 500 companies on diversity and inclusion strategies, and published numerous articles.

Anne served on the National Advisory Commission to Workplace Flexibility 2010, a consortium of multiple stakeholders in the flexibility conversation who were charged with developing a national policy platform for flexibility. The platform, released in 2009 at the National Press Club, became the blueprint for the Obama Administration’s approach to workplace flexibility, including the first-ever White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility held in 2010.

Prior to Catalyst, Anne practiced law both full time and part-time. She has served on the Board of the Forte Foundation and the Harvard Law School Association, and on the Diversity Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. She has also held elected office, serving as trustee for the Village of Scarsdale from 2000-2002, and worked for State Assemblywoman Audrey Hochberg as Director of Community Affairs.

Anne received her Bachelor of Science Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley and her Juris Doctor cum laude from Harvard Law School. She and her husband live in New York and have five children between them.

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Myrna Woods is the Manager of Finance and HR Administration at Families and Work Institute. She performs the day-to-day general accounting at FWI, working closely with the Chief Financial Officer assisting with quarterly and year-end closings and yearly audit preparation. She also assists in the implementation of goals, policies and procedures relating to accounting at FWI.

As HR Administrator, she is responsible for the daily management of HR policies and procedures, the administering of FWI’s benefit programs including group health, disability, unemployment and retirement plans while providing daily support to staff.

Prior to joining the Institute, Ms. Woods was a Staff Accountant at Century 21 Stores, a group of successful New York-based department stores. In 1998, she graduated from Bernard Baruch College where she received her Bachelor’s in Business Administration in Accounting.

Myrna Woods is a member of the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA), one of the leaders in expanding the influence of minority professionals in the fields of Accounting and Finance. In her free time Ms. Woods, with the help of NABA, provides free financial consulting and tax preparation services to low income residents of New York City.

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