Staff

Workplace Center staff members are a multi-disciplinary team of experts dedicated to the importance of work in people's lives. The staffing of the Center has historically included people from multiple disciplines. Through this interdisciplinary team approach, the staff have the variety in perspective necessary to help organizations create sustainable organizational change directed at improving the well being of individuals and organizations in the world of work.

Lauren B. Gates, Ph.D.

Lauren B. Gates is the Director of the Center for Social Policy and Practice and a Senior Research Scientist at Columbia University School of Social Work (CUSSW). Dr. Gates has conducted research and provided training, developed policy and programs and offered consultation around workplace issues for people at risk of not being able to secure or sustain employment such as individuals with physical or psychiatric disability, youth transitioning from foster care, older people or victims of domestic violence. Her current research includes a study of workplace supports that help single parents of children with asthma meet job demands while caring for their children and a test of the effectiveness of strategies that promote the integration of peer staff into social services agencies. Dr. Gates is also providing training on employment-related best practice for the New York State provider systems. As an adjunct professor she has taught courses at CUSSW in research methods and vocational issues. Her publications include Disability Management: A Complete System to Reduce Costs, Increase Productivity, Meet Employee Needs, and Ensure Legal Compliance co-authored with S. H. Akabas and D. Galvin and Planning for Disability Management: An Approach to Controlling Costs While Caring for Employees co-authored with S. H. Akabas as well as numerous articles on vocational evidence based practice, disability, labor force diversity and neighborhood planning.

Sheila H. Akabas, Ph.D.

Sheila H. Akabas is the Director Emeritus of the Workplace Center and a Professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work where she chairs Social Enterprise Administration as a method of practice and World of Work as a field of practice.  She is an internationally renowned expert and scholar of human resource management, disability policy and practice and delivery of social services to workers. Dr. Akabas also directs the Center for Social Policy and Practice in the Workplace. She has served as Principal Investigator on numerous government and foundation funded research projects and as consultant to corporations, trade unions, and nonprofit institutions in the United States and abroad, often in the role of evaluator and program developer. Dr. Akabas acted as consultant to the United Nations Development Program on disability policy in Bulgaria and on training policy for participation in competitive labor markets in Kazhakstan. She has served on the Executive Committee of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, and for ten years was Chair of the Technical Advisory Committee to the Dole Foundation for Employment of People with Disabilities. Dr. Akabas has been honored for her work by the Industrial and Labor Relations School at Cornell University as its Groat Awardee, by the National Association of Social Work, the National Rehabilitation Association, Boston University and has been named a Switzer Scholar. She is the author and editor of several books; the latest, co-authored, is entitled Work and the Workplace: A Resource for Innovative Policy and Practice and was published by Columbia University Press in 2005. Dr. Akabas contributes widely to a variety of scholarly journals and has been invited to provide expert testimony to both legislative hearings and in federal court. She is a graduate of Cornell University and holds an M.B.A. and a doctorate, with honors, in economics from New York University.

Andrea Hughes, M.S.S.W.

Andrea Hughes is the Research Staff Associate at the Workplace Center and a recent graduate of Columbia University School of Social Work where she earned her M.S.S.W.  As a Master’s student, Andrea’s focus was on social policy research specific to family, youth, and children, with a particular interest in family violence and promoting economic security for survivors of intimate partner violence.  She served as an intern at Columbia University Population Center conducting qualitative research, and during her first program year interned at a crime victims’ service agency providing counseling and advocacy for survivors of domestic violence.
Andrea has experience in non-profit and for-profit management, fundraising, developing workshops, training, coaching, national and international outreach, project management, and teaching yoga. Andrea received a B.A. in English from Hunter College and a B.A. in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice.