Dean Lynch presents Heller School teaching, mentoring, staff awards

Carole Carlson, Tatjana Meschede, Norma DeMattos honored

Photo/Mike Lovett

Dean Lisa Lynch with Heller award winners, from left, Tatjana Meschede, Norma DeMattos and Carole Carlson.

Dean Lisa Lynch today presented the 2013 Teaching Award of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management to Carole Carlson, MBA, an adjunct lecturer who teaches courses on social entrepreneurship and strategic management and also supervises the Team Consulting Project Workshop, a joint course of Heller and the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program.

As managing director of Carlson Partners, Carlson has worked on economic development initiatives with a wide range of clients, including municipalities, foundations, and nonprofit organizations such as the City of New York, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City. She also coaches mid-career professionals in the Harvard Business School’s Executive Education programs.

Student nominations for the award emphasized Carlson’s high expectations for her students and her ability to create a “great environment for discussion,” in which she “dynamically and expertly” engages all students, providing frameworks that sharpen their analytical skills. Nominators noted that each week they look forward eagerly to her 4 ½-hour class.

Tatjana Meschede, PhD, scientist, senior lecturer and research director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, received the 2013 Mentorship Award.  With expertise on homelessness and housing, poverty, and economic security, Meschede lectures widely and has authored Institute Reports on these topics.  Her current research addresses the financial security of U.S. seniors and racial wealth disparities. She teaches a course on working with national data sets to inform policy analysis and recommendations.

Student nominators praised Meschede for her attention to their research interests and support in developing the skills needed to pursue them. As a mentor, she makes “Heller an encouraging yet rigorous place to learn,” one wrote.

Only in its second year, the new Heller Staff Service Award recognizes extraordinary work by non-academic staff to “organize an effective environment for learning, teaching, and research and foster excellence in these areas.” Nominations come from the entire Heller community.

This year’s recipient is Norma DeMattos, program administrator for both the MPP and the MBA programs. Described by students as the MBA “mom,” “the glue that holds the MBA together,” and someone who “has all the answers,” DeMattos not only handles countless administrative responsibilities, permitting faculty to focus on their teaching and students on their studies, but, with kindness and humor, makes “each student feel warmly welcomed,”  her nominators wrote.