Meet our Board

Ruth, who has served on the Bridges Homeward Board for more than 15 years, grew up in Schenectady, New York and graduated from Mount Holyoke College and the Simmons School of Social Work. She has been a social worker and a resident of Cambridge for more than forty years. Her professional specialty has been working with divorcing families, and she has served as President of the Mass Association of Guardians ad Litem and the Mass chapter of the Association of Family Courts, as well as consulting to the Governor's Commission on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children. Ruth is presently on the Institutional Review Board of Mount Auburn Hospital and the advisory board for the supervised visitation program at the Guidance Center.

In 2012 Ruth received the Distinguished Lifetime Career Award from Simmons School of Social Work. Her other interests include theater, bridge, her nieces and nephews and pretending to live in London.

Debjani has worked in hospital management for over 24 years. She is currently the Senior Director of the Department of Medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance. Before, Debjani worked at Massachusetts General Hospital for 19 years. She served as Administrative Director in the Department of Geriatric Medicine and Palliative Care and the Department of Pediatrics, and as the Director of Operations and Quality in the Department of Surgery. She has also worked at Fallon Clinic in Worcester and at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Debjani earned her bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and her master’s degree in health administration from a joint program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Clark University. Living in Cambridge with her husband and daughter, she supports various community efforts including the Cambridge Public Schools, United Way and the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter. Debjani enjoys reading, traveling and entertaining.

Erika is Vice President for Accion’s Resource Development team, and oversees individual philanthropy for the global non profit. She has over twenty years of experience in securing and managing resources from individual, foundation, and corporate donors.

Before her current role, Erika worked as a loan officer and program manager for small business lender Working Capital and Accion in the U.S., where she mobilized loan fund capital and also helped launch several corporate partnerships, including the Brewing the American Dream partnership between Samuel Adams and Accion.

Claudia has comprehensive education and over ten years of clinical experience. In 2007, Claudia graduated with her Bachelor's in Sociology & Public Policy and Government. Shortly after, she graduated with her Masters of Social Work from Springfield College.

Before beginning her Private Practice, Claudia has had a range of professional experience supporting clients and families through various behavioral and psychiatric settings. Claudia has developed and implemented clinical programs for many nonprofit organizations in both Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Joe has more than 30 years of experience working with non-profit organizations in the human services, healthcare, education, and cultural sectors. Joe provides tax consulting services that are dedicated to improving the accountability and efficiency of tax-exempt organizations. Joe has been a featured speaker and author for newsletter and journal articles on the topics of tax planning, compliance and consulting, as well as executive compensation. He is a partner at the firm of Johnson O’Connor Feron & Carucci, LLP. Joe immigrated to the United States as child with his family from a small village in southern Italy on the Adriatic Sea. He has lived for over 30 years in Woburn, with his wife, Ann and his two children, Michael and Allyson. He tends to his garden in Woburn with the help of his son (the real gardener!). In the summer time, you will find Joe with his family and friends relaxing at their home in Maine. Joe holds a BA with a concentration in accounting from Suffolk University and an MS in taxation from Bentley University. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants. In addition, he is an Essex County Community Foundation’s County Leadership Council Member.

A graduate of Emerson College, Kim produced documentaries for public television in her early career. She then spent 15 years working in the nonprofit educational sector, serving youth in school gardens and classrooms, fundraising, and developing and managing educational programs. More recently, Kim returned to school to obtain her MSW from Salem State University in order to increase her engagement with youth and families. Kim is currently on staff at the Boston Children’s Hospital Primary Care Clinic where she works with low-resourced families on a housing and food program. Kim serves on the Cambridge Family Policy Council, a broad coalition of stakeholders who develop and recommend policy targeted at improving the lives of the city’s children and families. She is an advisory member on the Falcon Pride Scholarship Committee, and volunteers as a community mentor, working with a DACA student for the past four years. Kim lives in Cambridge with her husband and has two children who attended the Amigos School and Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.

Patricia has enjoyed a wide-ranging career as a journalist, teacher and political activist spanning three continents. Born and raised in Canada, Ms. Lorsch graduated from McGill University with a BA in French and Russian languages. She studied drama in French at L’Institut International Polytechnique du Spectacle in Paris, and later worked as a reporter in London on the Evening Standard and as a feature writer at the Daily Express. Returning to Canada, she spent the next eight years as a staff feature writer for Weekend Magazine, a national publication based in Montreal. Pioneering in such fields as the environment and women’s liberation, she focused on a variety of social issues as well as profiles of writers, politicians, artists and entertainers. While living in India she wrote and taught journalism at the Calcutta School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Since becoming an American citizen in the mid-nineties, Ms. Lorsch has been active in the Democratic Party at the national, state and local levels. She was one of the original members of the New England Steering Committee for Barack Obama and is currently a member of the Democratic National Finance Committee. An elected member of the Cambridge Democratic City Committee, she is Secretary for the Ward Ten Committee. Ms. Lorsch joined the CFCS Board in 2008, where she has co-chaired the Annual Circle of Friends Gala and Auction and served as Chair of the Development Committee. She also sits on the Board of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Ms. Lorsch is married to Harvard Business School professor Jay Lorsch and has two children, three stepchildren and eight grandchildren. Patricia co-founded a writers’ group which meets monthly at her home, and is currently working on a novel.

Bill joined the Bridges Homeward Board in 2012 and served as Board President from 2015 to 2018. He is currently an adjunct professor at Northeastern University School of Law. He is a former Senior Vice President of TIAA-CREF, the financial services firm focused on higher education; Deputy General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Bank of America Corporation; and Deputy General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Chief Governance Officer of The Gillette Company. His legal experience was focused on securities laws, corporate law, mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance. He graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, and Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. Bill is the former Chairman of the Board of the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals that represents over 3000 companies in the United States. He is currently on the advisory council of the Society’s Eastern New England Chapter. He served in the US Navy from 1969 to 1971. Bill is the father of two sons and lives with Sandee, his wife for 40 years, in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Bill brings to the board a deep experience in corporate law, organizational governance, corporate charitable programs and financial oversight.

Sean Murphy, AVP, Director of Design and Construction at Liberty Mutual, is a versatile real estate professional with deep and varied experience spanning over 35 years in leadership roles. In his current position, Sean is responsible for merging Liberty’s real estate strategy and implementation with the business requirements in Liberty’s US national portfolio, including leased and owned facilities. During his tenure at Liberty, Sean has successfully managed the design and construction portfolio, responsible for an annual volume of 150+ projects with a multimillion-dollar budget. His team oversees transactional-based leasehold improvements, new construction, major capital upgrades and space and furniture standards. He also led teams responsible for the development of Liberty’s campuses in Dover, NH, Boston, MA and Plano, North Texas. Prior to joining Liberty Mutual, Sean held roles in real estate, construction management and academia; at Wentworth Institute of Technology, Cresa Partners, Structuretone, Inc., and South Birmingham College, UK. Sean is active in both professional and community activities. He is a Corenet member and current Co-Chair of the Golf Committee. He is also a Past President of the Boston Chapter of the International Facilities Management Association (IFMA). Sean holds a MA in Education from Cambridge College in Massachusetts and a Certificate in Education from South Birmingham College in the United Kingdom.

Kay Perkinson is an executive leader within the Energy space who currently works for National Grid's IT Customer organization, managing the investment portfolio from a delivery, financial, regulatory, and compliance perspective. Kay has held a variety of management roles across industries, including robotics, healthcare, and finance.

Kay was first introduced to Bridges Homeward during her time at MIT, where she and her Executive MBA team members completed an assessment of Bridges Homeward’s Gore Street building and potential options for improvement. In addition to her MBA, Kay holds an Environmental Sciences degree from Northwestern University, where she played center midfield on the Women’s Soccer team. Kay now lives with her husband, Jim, an Energy Storage Product Manager at EDF, and their four children in Winchester, MA. In her free time, Kay enjoys running, listening to audiobooks and coaching youth soccer.

As the Chief Marketing Officer at Cambridge Savings Bank (CSB), Lisa’s number one priority is to make the “Always you” experiences customers have with the bank come alive. Lisa leads the development and delivery of CSB’s brand and marketing strategy and is responsible for creating strategic roadmaps for growing and cultivating long-term client relationships across the retail, small business and commercial business lines. Before joining CSB, she earned over 25 years of financial services acumen at several large and regional banks, including Santander, Bank of America, Fleet and BayBank, and through a boutique consulting firm where she provided strategic advisory services and insights centered around consumer decision-making criteria. Lisa is a resident of Cambridge and a member of the WGBH Corporate Executive Council.

Dennis is a partner at Rutabaga Capital Management, an institutional investment management firm based in Boston focusing on micro-cap and small cap stocks founded in 1999. Prior to joining Rutabaga, Dennis was an analyst and portfolio manager at David L. Babson & Company, which was based in Cambridge. Dennis received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and his master's degree in management from the Yale School of Management. He was a Henry Luce Scholar in Asia from 1983 to 1984, where he worked for the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee. Dennis lives in Cambridge with his wife Jane Kamensky, who is a professor of American History at Harvard University, and their two sons.

Beth is a long-time Cambridge resident transplanted from California where she graduated from University of California, San Diego and University of Southern California Gould School of Law. Beth practiced law for over 20 years in California, New York and Massachusetts. For 12 years, Beth had a solo law practice in Cambridge dedicated to assisting families of children with disabilities across the Commonwealth to ensure they received the free and appropriate public education they were entitled to. Previously, Beth worked on behalf of children as a public defender, as a staff attorney for legal services and advocacy organizations (including Massachusetts Advocates for Children) and as a Committee for Public Counsel Services panel attorney. Currently, Beth is the Director of Student Services at New England Law | Boston. Beth has been honored to serve on the Bridges Homeward Board, in support of the organization’s mission, since November 2019.

Susan is an experienced senior program and training director and attorney with a background in state and federal government, higher education, child welfare, strategic leadership and human services. She is the Director of the Public Policy and Practice Hub at Suffolk University. Before Suffolk, Susan served as the Director of the Massachusetts Child Welfare Institute, which is the training, professional development and professional education center at the Department of Children and Families. There, among her accomplishments, she expanded training for social work staff and created a nationally recognized fellowship partnership program among DCF and public and private schools of social work. Susan is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2015 National Association of Social Worker's Public Citizen of the Year award. Currently, she is a Senior Fellow at the Suffolk University Moakley Center for Public Management. Susan holds a BS in education and a JD degree, both from Boston University. She also has completed a Suffolk University Certificate in Human Service Leadership and Management.

William Tsoules is a Boston-based CPA whose career in Accounting and Finance has focused principally in the non-profit sector. He earned his BA in sociology and psychology from Wesleyan Univsersity, and his MBA and MS in accounting from Northeastern University. Will is currently the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for the Massachusetts Banking Association, and has recently worked for the Massachusetts Historical Society and Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston and the Grand Lodge of California Freemasons in San Francisco. Will enthusiastically joined the Bridges Homeward Board in 2015 and has volunteered previously on the Advisory Council of the Worcester Area Retired & Senior Volunteer Program. Will also leads volunteer efforts with various local food banks and the Eastern Orthodox churches of which he is a member. He lives with his wife Dana and son Evan in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston.

Debra has been in the financial services industry for over 20 years. Debra is currently a Senior Compliance Advisor for Sales Material Oversight at Amundi Pioneer in Boston. Before Amundi Pioneer, Debra worked in the legal/compliance department at Commonwealth Financial Network for six years and, prior to that, at Eaton Vance Corp for almost ten years. Debra graduated magna cum laude from The University of Michigan and is a cum laude graduate of Boston College Law School. Debra was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. After having lived in Brookline for ten years, Debra moved across the river to Cambridge in 2000. She currently lives in mid-Cambridge with her husband and two sons, ages 13 and 16. Debra has been involved in the Jewish community through Combined Jewish Philanthropies and, since her move to Cambridge, through her synagogue, Temple Beth Shalom. Debra held several leadership roles during her time on the Board of Alef-Bet Childcare Center, where her children attended pre-school. Debra joined the Board of Cambridgeport Afterschool Program, Inc. in 2008 and served as President of that board from 2010 to 2016. Debra loves college basketball, a good book and pancakes.