Celebrating a Career That Brought Families and Workplaces Together: Jennifer Fraone Receives Family Tree Award

The Center for Families is pleased to recognize Jennifer Fraone with the Family Tree Award, honoring her impact while at the Boston College Center for Work & Family and the partnership with the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research.

The Kanter Award has long depended on meaningful collaboration between researchers and practitioners, and few have embodied that connection more fully than Jennifer. As a leader at the Boston College Center for Work & Family, alongside Brad Harrington and later as Director, Jennifer helped ensure that the award remained grounded in both scholarly rigor and real-world impact.

One of Jennifer’s most impactful contributions was her organization of the CWF Workforce Roundtable, which united global employers in a meaningful partnership with the Kanter Award. That collaboration proved invaluable on multiple fronts: member organizations provided financial support for the award, helped evaluate finalist research papers, and amplified the reach of scholarship that has shaped programs and policies touching millions of employees and their families worldwide.

The Boston College Center for Work & Family served the field for 35 years, and its Workforce Roundtable became a model for how academic centers can engage the employer community as genuine partners. Not just as an audience, but as active contributors to the research enterprise. Jennifer’s stewardship of that relationship strengthened the Kanter Award and the broader field it serves.

The Family Tree Award was created by CFF to recognize individuals who have brought families and communities together in lasting and meaningful ways. Jennifer’s work exemplifies exactly that kind of generational impact. Through her leadership of the Workforce Roundtable and her partnership with the Kanter Award, she helped nurture a community where research and practice inform one another, and where the ultimate beneficiaries are working families everywhere.

We are grateful for everything Jennifer, and the Boston College Center for Work & Family, contributed to this field. Congratulations, Jennifer!