Senior Scholar
Michelle Seligson arrived at WCW in the fall of 1978 to begin work on a national research and action project on afterschool programs, for which she received a small Ford Foundation grant. Originally titled The School-Age Child Care Project, it is now known as the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST). This work grew out of Seligson’s several years of community organizing and program development for the Town of Brookline where she was the assistant director of the Town's Human Relations/Youth Resources Commission. In that role she helped parents and others start afterschool programs in the public schools. When two mass-market magazines wrote about the Brookline programs, Seligson received thousands of letters from across the county, leading to her bringing the School-Age Child Care Project to WCW.
After more than 20 years as founding director of NIOST conducting research, technical assistance, training, and advocacy to stimulate more development of programs and policy in afterschool programs, Seligson began a new project at the Centers. This project, Bringing Yourself To Work: Caregiving in After School Programs, produced a book, Bringing Yourself to Work: A Guide to Successful Staff Development in After-School Programs (Columbia University, 2003), and a training program geared to adults who work with children. Its intellectual base is social-emotional learning and relational-cultural theory, among other theory frameworks.
Seligson has co-authored a number of publications through the years, beginning with School-Age Child Care: An Action Manual in 1982. During the mid-eighties, she embarked on an investigation of early childhood programs and the role of public schools, and this resulted in a book titled Early Childhood Programs and the Public Schools: Between Promise and Practice.
Seligson’s work at WCW reflects an interest and abiding belief in the power of good ideas to attract others to solve problems and a recognition that it takes at least 20 years to create a movement and a context in which that can happen.
In late September 2000, she embarked on a new venture in addition to her work on the Bringing Yourself to Work Project. She was accepted into the analytic training program at the Boston Jung Institute and participate in seminars and other activities associated with becoming a Jungian analyst. In 2003 she began collaborating on a documentary about mothers who are also women artists which is set for release in January 2008. Seligson retired from WCW in the summer of 2007.
Other interests have always been in the literary area—reading novels and writing poems, something she has done since adolescence. She is a swimmer, walker, and unabashed lover of her cat, Shadow. She is proud of her two adult children and their different life choices--one an attorney, and the other a musician and composer.
Former Associate Director
Director Emerita
Work, Families, & Children Research Group
Nidhiya Menon is an Associate Professor of Economics at Brandeis University, and was on sabbatical at Wellesley Centers for Women for the 2010-2011 academic year. She is an empirical development economist who has worked on labor and gender-related topics in several countries of South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan), East Asia (Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia), and more recently, Africa (Kenya). Additionally, her areas of expertise include program evaluation, risk analysis, and implementation of unconventional financing schemes such as micro-finance. Her research and publications span topics in development economics, labor, and economic demography. Some of her recent work considered how the global recession has affected labor market outcomes for men and women differently, and how female-owned firms in Kenya use technology to overcome regulatory obstacles. She has been a researcher at the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, and is currently a consultant with the World Bank. She is also a Research Fellow at IZA. She holds a B.A. in Economics and International Relations from Mount Holyoke College, and a M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Brown University.
Publications/Forthcoming in Refereed Journals:
“How Access to Credit Affects Self-Employment: Differences by Gender during India’s Rural Banking Reform,” with Yana Rodgers. Journal of Development Studies, forthcoming.
“Investment Credit and Child Labor,” Applied Economics, 2010, 42(12), 1461-1479.
“Public Programs Pare Poverty: Evidence from Chile,” with David Glick. Bulletin of Economic Research, 2009, 61(3), 249-282.
“International Trade and the Gender Wage Gap: New Evidence from India’s Manufacturing Sector,” with Yana Rodgers. World Development, 2009, 37(5), 965-981.
“Rainfall Uncertainty and Occupational Choice in Agricultural Households of Rural Nepal,” Journal of Development Studies, 2009, 45(6), 864-888.
“Learning, Diversification, and the Nature of Risk,” with Narayanan Subramanian. Economic Theory, 2008, 35(1), 117-145.
“The Relationship between Labor Unionization and the Number of Working Children in India,” Indian Economic Journal, 2007, 54(3), 133-151.
“Labor Conflicts and Foreign Investments: An Analysis of FDI in India,” with Paroma Sanyal. Review of Development Economics, 2007, 11(4), 629-644.
“Inter-dependencies in Micro-Credit Groups: Evidence from Repayment Data.” Journal of Developing Areas, 2007, 40(2), 111-132.
“Long Term Benefits of Membership in Microfinance Programs,” Journal of International Development, 2006, 18, 571-594.
“Non-Linearities in Returns to Participation in Grameen Bank Programs.” Journal of Development Studies, 2006, 42(8), 1379-1400.
“Labor Disputes and the Economics of Firm Geography: A Study of Domestic Investment in India,” with Paroma Sanyal. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2005, 53(4), 825-854.
Chapters and Articles in Edited Volumes:
“Trade Policy Liberalization and Gender Equality in the Labor Market: New Evidence for India,” Rutgers University World Affairs Review, Fall 2008, Issue 3, pp. 1-25 (with Yana Rodgers).
“Gender Inequality in the Labor Market During Economic Transition: Changes in India’s Manufacturing Sector,” in Ravi Kanbur and Jan Svejnar (eds.), Labor Markets and Economic Development. London and New York: Routledge Press, 2009, pp. 341-363 (with Yana Rodgers).
Working Papers:
“Gender and Conflict in Nepal: Testing for “Added Worker” Effects,” with Yana Rodgers. June 2010.
“Impact of the Food, Fuel, and Financial Crisis on the Philippine Labor Market,” with Yana Rodgers. August 2010.
“Spatial Decentralization and Program Evaluation: Theory and an Example from Indonesia,” with Mark Pitt. August 2010.
“Using Technology to Overcome Regulatory Obstacles in Africa: Evidence from Firms with Female Principal Owners in Kenya.” August 2010.
Ruth Harriet Jacobs joined the Center for Research on Women at the Wellesley Centers for Women in 1979. She was a professor of sociology at Boston University, chair of the sociology department at Clark University, and a distinguished visiting professor at the College of William and Mary.
Dr. Jacobs has given many talks in low-income elder housing throughout the state of Massachusetts under sponsorship of the Tenants Assistance Program of the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency. The majority of her audiences are women, as women have longer lives and older women are among the poorest Americans. Her talks, Aging Outrageously and Courageously, the ABCs of Aging, and Women After Eighty: Reflecting, Advocating, Living Fully, featured advice on self care and the elderly getting the help they need.
Dr. Jacobs has also spoken throughout New England and the country at senior centers, continuing care communities, assisted living facilities, Red Hat Society meetings, and to professionals in the field of aging as requested. In addition to her presentations on aging, she has also taught memoir writing as a creative way to put our lives in perspective. She is the author of nine books including Be an Outrageous Older Woman, published by Harper Collins, and ABCs for Seniors: Successful Aging Wisdom from an Outrageous Gerontologist, published in 2006 by Hatala Geroproducts.
She taught in the Lifetime Learning programs at Brandeis University and Regis College, and Continuing Education Unit classes for psychologists, nurses, physicians, social workers, and others who care for elders. In addition to her nine books, she has contributed many chapters and articles to anthologies and professional and literary journals. Her play, Happy Birthday, read from scripts and cast from audiences, is distributed by the Wellesley Centers for Women. She has been awarded grants and contracts from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, the U.S. Department of Education, and many non-government foundations and agencies. Dr. Jacobs has received numerous awards, including one for mentoring, and has been given residence at artists' colonies. Dr. Jacobs received a B.S. from Boston University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Brandeis University.