TCF - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director of People, Systems, and Design
Aisha Mills has spent over twenty years advocating for underserved, under-represented, and under-resourced communities, and she has fought and won campaigns on the front lines of some of the most consequential movements of our time.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow at the Century Foundation
Alejandra Vázquez Baur is a fellow at The Century Foundation, where she manages the Bridges Collaborative and directs the National Newcomer Network.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Communications
- Vice President of Communications at the Century Foundation
Alex Edwards is the Vice President of Communications at The Century Foundation, where he leads efforts to elevate the organization's ideas and impact in the media, among policymakers, and with key stakeholders.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Professor at the University of Southern California
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow at the Century Foundation
Amber Villalobos is a fellow at The Century Foundation working on higher education policy, with a focus on for-profit education, online education, and institutional accountability.
Anji Herman is the Development Officer at The Century Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow at the Century Foundation
Ann O'Leary is a fellow at The Century Foundation and focuses her work on advocating for paid family leave and broader issues of the Care Economy.
Job Titles:
- Fellow and Deputy Director of Health Equity and Reform
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow at Century International
Aron Lund is a fellow at Century International and Middle East analyst at the Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI). He is a Swedish writer on Middle Eastern affairs and has written extensively on Syrian politics. Between 2013 and 2016, edited the site Syria in Crisis for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he was also a nonresident associate in 2016. He is a fellow of the Centre for Syrian Studies at St. Andrew's University. His publications include two Swedish-language books on Syrian politics, Drömmen om Damaskus (Stockholm, 2010) and Syrien brinner (Stockholm, 2014), the English-language Divided They Stand (Brussels, 2012), as well as several reports and book chapters published by, among others, the Carnegie Endowment, the Swedish Institute for International Affairs, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). He has an MA in Arabic from the Oriental Studies Program of Uppsala University in Sweden and has studied Arabic in Damascus, Algiers, and Cairo.
Barton Gellman is a critically honored author, journalist, and blogger. His professional distinctions include two Pulitzer Prizes (individual and team), the George Polk Award, and Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Consultant
- Member of the Leadership Team
Bradley Abelow is a consultant, currently working primarily on advising clients around the politics of climate change. He has worked in government and business.
Job Titles:
- Director of Higher Education Policy and Senior Fellow
- Is Director
Carolyn Fast is director of higher education policy and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation where she works on higher education policy with a focus on institutional accountability and consumer protections. Before joining The Century Foundation, Carolyn was special counsel in the Consumer Frauds and Protection Bureau of the New York Attorney General's Office. In that role, Carolyn investigated and brought enforcement actions against predatory for-profit colleges and student loan lenders and servicers, securing millions of dollars in restitution for students and student loan borrowers. Prior to joining the Attorney General's Office, Carolyn clerked for Judge Victor Marrero in the Southern District of New York. Carolyn received her undergraduate degree from Harvard and her law degree from Columbia Law School.
Job Titles:
- Fellow and Next100 Senior Policy Entrepreneur
- Fellow at the Century Foundation
Chantal is a fellow at The Century Foundation, senior policy entrepreneur at Next100, and an advocate for students involved in the foster system.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow
- Columnist
- Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation
Conor P. Williams is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, and an expert on urban education reform, English learner students, children of immigrants, early education programs, and school choice systems. He is also a founding partner with the Children's Equity Project.
Williams was previously a senior researcher in New America's Education Policy Program, a senior researcher in its Early Education Initiative, and the founding director of its Dual Language Learners National Work Group. He has taught postsecondary courses at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and American University.
Williams is a regular columnist at the 74 Million. His work has also been published by the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Washington Post, TIME, The New Republic, Slate, Dissent, The Daily Beast, Vox, Talking Points Memo, and elsewhere.
Williams holds a PhD and MA in government from Georgetown University, an MS in teaching from Pace University, and a BA in government and Spanish from Bowdoin College. Before beginning his doctoral research, he taught first grade in Brooklyn, New York. Williams attended public schools for his K-12 education, and has three children enrolled in public Title I schools in Washington, D.C.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow at Century International
- Founding Member of 972 Magazin
Dahlia Scheindlin is a fellow at Century International, based in Tel Aviv. She is a public opinion expert and an international political and strategic consultant, as well as a scholar and a writer. She is the author of The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel, published in September 2023.
She has advised and conducted research on eight national campaigns in Israel over twenty years, and has provided research and advising for elections, referendums, and civil society campaigns in fifteen different countries and regions (Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, the United States, and Zanzibar).
In the past, she has worked as a senior analyst for the Washington-based global firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQRR), the director of international campaigns at GCS Issue Management, and a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute. As an independent consultant, she conducts extensive public opinion and policy research on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the peace process (including working for Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the Camp David negotiations in 2000, through GQRR). She also consults on the issues of democracy, human rights, minority relations, religious identity, Arab-Jewish relations, and foreign affairs. She conducts the ongoing joint Israeli-Palestinian public opinion survey together with the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
Scheindlin completed her PhD in political science at Tel Aviv University, where she wrote about unrecognized states emerging from ethnonationalist conflicts (focusing on Kosovo, Northern Cyprus, and Nagorno-Karabakh). She has taught as an adjunct lecturer at Tel Aviv University, Ben Gurion University, the Jezreel Valley College, and at Eastern Mediterranean University in Northern Cyprus. She has given individual lectures at Columbia, Oxford, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, American University, and George Washington University, among others.
Scheindlin is a founding member of +972 Magazin e. She was a fellow at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights (2013), a policy fellow at Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, where she focused on comparative conflict analysis in 2016-19. She co-hosts the podcast The Tel Aviv Review, on TLV1 Radio, together with Gilad Halpern, and co-hosted a podcast on the 2021 Israeli elections with Anshel Pfeffer at the newspaper Haaretz. Dahlia has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Time, and other publications. She is a frequent commentator for international media, including CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, France 24, CBC, and AFP.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Director of Policy and Special Counsel for the AFL
Damon A. Silvers is the Director of Policy and Special Counsel for the AFL-CIO. He joined the AFL-CIO as Associate General Counsel in 1997.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow and Director of the Government Affairs Program
- Senior Fellow and Director of the Government Affairs Program at the Century Foundation
Daniel (Danny) Weiss is a senior fellow and director of the government affairs program at The Century Foundation focused on improving public understanding of the U.S. Congress and advancing public policy in the areas of education, health care, and the economy.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director
- Deputy Director of Higher Education Policy and Senior Fellow
Dr. Denise A. Smith is the deputy director of higher education policy and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. Her groundbreaking research delves into educational equity, promoting diversity in a post-affirmative action society, the financing of HBCUs, and the pivotal role of government funding in empowering these institutions and their students' success. Through her unwavering commitment to research and policy advocacy, she has shed light on the glaring funding disparities facing HBCUs and the formidable challenges Black women encounter in accessing higher education. Dr. Smith's influential work has garnered attention from numerous members of Congress and state legislatures, spurring concrete steps to address these critical issues.
Prior to her role at TCF, Dr. Smith served as the director of college programs and student engagement at Truth Initiative, known for its truth campaign, where she led the first-ever truth® College Programs creating student leaders on college campuses and spearheaded impactful campaigns on issues such as vaping and the ban on menthol. Her extensive experience includes stakeholder engagement and grantmaking to over 200 minority-serving institutions, HBCUs, women's colleges, and community colleges, providing invaluable strategic guidance on institutional-level policy change to campus administration task forces, fostering collaboration between faculty, students, and community partners as well equipping students with the leadership skills necessary to drive policy change.
Dr. Smith holds a doctorate of philosophy in higher education leadership and policy studies from Howard University and a master of public health policy degree from Morehouse School of Medicine. Her bachelor's degree is from South Carolina State University, and she was recently honored as a member of their inaugural 40 under 40 class. She also serves on the Advisory Council for Howard University's Center for HBCU Leadership, Research, and Policy and is a distinguished member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow at the Century Foundation
Dr. Margaret S. Marcus is a fellow at The Century Foundation, working on improving prospects for English learners. She is also the executive director of the Sullivan Family Charitable Foundation, a private family foundation dedicated to improving educational outcomes for English learners, as well as responsive grant-making both domestically and abroad.
Job Titles:
- Editor - in - Chief of Century International
Eamon Kircher-Allen is editor-in-chief at Century International. He has worked as a journalist in the United States and East Africa, and for more than a decade as a writer, editor, and researcher focusing on economics, the environment, and the Middle East and Africa. He has a BA in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master of international affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.
Job Titles:
- Director of Maternal and Reproductive Health and Senior Fellow
- Renowned Maternal Health Leader
Elizabeth Dawes is the Director of Maternal and Reproductive Health and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, where she leads the organization's efforts to advance maternal health equity and reproductive justice.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow and Director of Workforce Policy
- Senior Fellow and Director of Workforce Policy at the Century Foundation
- Strategist
Emily McGrath is a senior fellow and director of workforce policy at The Century Foundation. Emily is a workforce strategist with deep experience in coalition-building, innovative educational initiatives, and program scaling.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant
- Office Manager
- Office Manager / Executive Assistant at the Century Foundation
Gaby Garcon is the office manager/executive assistant at The Century Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Creative Manager
- Creative Manager at the Century Foundation
Hailey Walsh is the creative manager at The Century Foundation, specializing in mission-driven, human-centered service design.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow and Director of PK - 12 Education Policy
- Senior Fellow and Director of PK - 12 Education Policy at the Century Foundation
Halley Potter is a senior fellow and director of PK-12 education policy at The Century Foundation, where she works to advance public policy solutions for addressing educational inequality. She is an expert on school integration, preschool equity, charter schools, and college access. Her work at TCF includes producing original research as well as helping to lead the Bridges Collaborative, a national network of school systems and housing organizations committed to advancing integration.
Halley is coauthor, with Richard D. Kahlenberg, of A Smarter Charter: Finding What Works for Charter Schools and Public Education (Teachers College Press, 2014), which examines two themes behind the original vision for charter schools as set out by teacher union leader Albert Shanker: empowering teachers as leaders and innovators and bringing together students from different racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Her writing has also been published in numerous news outlets, including The New York Times, Washington Post, US News, and Educational Leadership, and she has appeared on MSNBC and public radio. She has testified before lawmakers as well as provided technical assistance and presented research to school superintendents, principals, school board members, and teachers across the country.
In 2014, Halley co-founded the Diverse Charter Schools Coalition, a grassroots advocacy and membership group supporting high-quality racially and economically integrated public charter schools. Prior to joining The Century Foundation, Halley taught at Two Rivers Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., a K-8 school that uses the Expeditionary Learning model to guide students in semester-long, in-depth investigations of science and social studies topics. She graduated summa cum laude from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in religious studies and is an alumnus of the Coro Leadership New York program.
Halley Potter is a senior fellow and director of PK-12 education policy at The Century Foundation, where she researches public policy solutions for addressing educational inequality.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Director, State Health and Value Strategies
- Professor
Heather Howard is professor of the practice and director, State Health and Value Strategies, at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and co-director of the Center for Health and Wellbeing's Global Health Program and director of State Health and Value Strategies, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded program focused on assisting states with transforming their health care systems to be affordable, equitable, and innovative.
Ijeoma Egekeze, M.P.H., is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, where she works on issues related to maternal health and reproductive rights.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Development
- Vice President of Development at the Century Foundation
Ishi Sahni is the Vice President of Development at The Century Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Trustee
Jacob S. Hacker is the Stanley Resor Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Editorial
Jason Renker manages the editing, production, and distribution of the foundation's books and other publications.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director of Health Care Reform and Senior Fellow
- Leading Health Care Expert, Rejoins TCF After Remarkable Stint As Maine HHS Commissioner
Jeanne Lambrew is the director of health care reform and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Director of Technology
- Director of Technology at the Century Foundation
John Baronian is the Director of Technology at The Century Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Trustee
- Reporter, Columnist and Television Analyst
Jonathan Alter is an award-winning author, reporter, columnist and television analyst. He is the author of three New York Times bestsellers, a columnist for The Daily Beast and an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.
Jonathan Metzl is an acclaimed physician and sociologist who speaks, teaches, and writes on a range of topics, including mental illness and gun violence, race and whiteness in America, and health and health care.
Jordan Nellums is a senior policy associate on the Higher Education team at The Century Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Director, Women 's Economic Justice and Senior Fellow
- Senior Fellow and Director for Women 's Economic Justice at the Century Foundation
Julie Kashen is a senior fellow and director for women's economic justice at The Century Foundation, with expertise in work and family, caregiving, economic mobility, and labor.
Kashen has more than two decades of experience forwarding these issues in federal and state government and through the nonprofit sector, including helping to draft three major pieces of national legislation. As a labor policy advisor to the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), she helped draft and build momentum for the first paid sick days bill in Congress, the Healthy Families Act. As policy director of the three-year Make It Work campaign, she drafted a visionary child care proposal, whose principles were incorporated into the Child Care for Working Families Act. And as a senior advisor to the National Domestic Workers Alliance, she led the work to create and introduce the first ever national Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. In addition, as deputy director of policy for Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ), she helped New Jersey become the second state in the nation to adopt paid family and medical leave. She is an active member of many child care, paid leave, and equal pay coalitions and tables. Kashen has been affiliated with The Century Foundation since 2015.
Kashen holds a master's in public policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor's with highest honors in political science from the University of Michigan. She was an adjunct lecturer on work and family issues and poverty in the United States at Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey.
Julie Kashen is a senior fellow and Director for Women's Economic Justice at The Century Foundation with expertise in working families, economic mobility, labor, and poverty.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director
- Deputy Director of Development
Katherine (Katy) Nelson is deputy director of development at The Century Foundation.
Kim is the senior designer at The Century Foundation, specializing in creating user-centric digital experiences.
Job Titles:
- Associate for the Disability Economic Justice Team at the Century Foundation
- Research and Policy Associate
Kings Floyd is a research and policy associate for the Disability Economic Justice team at The Century Foundation. She is a disability rights activist, access coordinator and writer based in Washington, D.C. and Portland, Maine.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow at the Century Foundation
Laura Valle-Gutierrez is a fellow at The Century Foundation, where she works on economic policy and research to promote economic, disability, racial, and gender justice. Prior to joining TCF, Laura was the senior policy analyst at the Bell Policy Center, a state-based research and advocacy organization in Colorado. At the Bell she did research and advocacy for equity-centered policies around postsecondary education, workforce development, and fiscal reform. She received an MPA at Brown University with a focus in data-driven policy and a BA from Brown University in comparative French and English literature. Laura is originally from Puerto Rico and grew up in Longmont, Colorado.
Job Titles:
- Associate in the Women 's Economic Justice Department at the Century Foundation
- Senior Policy Associate
Lea Woods is a senior policy associate in the women's economic justice department at The Century Foundation where her work focuses on a range of issues, including paid family leave and child care.
Lisa A. Sahulka is the Chief Operating Officer at The Century Foundation.
Lucy Muirhead is the Chief Strategy Officer for The Century Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Director of Finance
- Is Director of Finance at the Century Foundation
Manny Mercado is Director of Finance at The Century Foundation.
Job Titles:
- President
- Long - Serving President, to Step Down in Early 2025
- President of the Century Foundation
Mark Zuckerman is President of The Century Foundation, served as President Obama's Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council from 2011 to 2013, and is a former Democratic Staff Director of the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee.
Melissa Harris-Perry is a college professor and an award-winning writer, speaker, and
Job Titles:
- Interim Director
- Interim Director of Disability Economic Justice and Senior Fellow
Michele Evermore is the interim director of disability economic justice and senior fellow at The Century Foundation, where she focuses on policy for improving the nation' social insurance programs.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow at the Century Foundation
Michelle Burris is a fellow at The Century Foundation, focusing on racial and gender equity in workforce development.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow at the Century Foundation
Peter Granville is a fellow at The Century Foundation, studying federal and state policy efforts to improve college access and affordability.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow
- Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation
Robert Shireman is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation working on higher education policy with a focus on affordability, quality assurance, and consumer protections.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director of Next100 and Senior Fellow
Stefan Redding Lallinger is the executive director of Next100, a think tank that is redefining how policy development is done by putting those closest to and most impacted by policy in the driver's seat of change.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow
- Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation
Steven Greenhouse is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, where he writes about wages and working conditions, labor organizing, and other workplace issues.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Organizational Strategist
Teresa Younger is a renowned advocate, organizational strategist, and philanthropic leader who currently serves as president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Health Care Policy Fellow at the Century Foundation
Thomas Waldrop is a health care policy fellow at The Century Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow at the Century Foundation
Tiara Moultrie is a fellow at The Century Foundation, focusing on higher education accountability.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow at the Century Foundation
Vina Smith-Ramakrishnan is a fellow at The Century Foundation, where she works on issues related to maternal health and reproductive rights and justice.
William M. Rodgers, III is a fellow at The Century Foundation and professor of public policy and chief economist at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director of Communications
Zack DiGregorio is deputy communications director for The Century Foundation and a political communicator with experience in the U.S. Senate, House, and in issue advocacy.