National Academy of Social Insurance Announces Distinguished Array of National Social Insurance Leaders as New Board Members, Senior Fellows, and Members of the Academy

WASHINGTON, D.C. – for immediate release

The National Academy of Social Insurance is pleased to announce several exciting updates for 2025, including: the election and re-election of several of the nation’s top social insurance experts to steer its Board of Directors, the addition of two new Senior Fellows to the Academy’s growing policy team, as well as the election of 64 new Academy Members.

Newly joining the Academy’s Board of Directors are Connie Garner and Bradley Hardy. “Bradley and Connie’s unique skills and vision will enrich the Academy’s board,” said Board Chair Paul Van de Water, “and I thank them for serving.”

Connie Garner brings decades of legislative and public policy expertise across a range of social insurance issues to the Academy’s Board. She is well known for her leadership and advocacy within the disability community, including 17 years as Policy Director for Disability and Special Populations on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), working under Senators Kennedy, Dodd, and Harkin. She has significantly contributed to a wide array of important legislation, including the CLASS Act; the Mental Health Parity Act of 2008; the 2006 and 2009 reauthorization of the $2 billion Ryan White CARE Act; the Family Opportunity Act of 2006; the 2005 reauthorization of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA); and the 1999 Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act. In addition, at the U.S. Department of Education, Garner served as Director of the Federal Interagency Coordinating Council for Children with Disabilities and as the Secretary of Education’s principal liaison on interagency health care matters. She is now President and CEO of Garner Public Policy Strategies and serves as the Executive Director at Allies for Independence.

Bradley Hardy joins the board as a leading expert on economic policy, income volatility, and U.S. poverty. He currently serves as a Distinguished Professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University; a nonresident senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution; and is a research affiliate of the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty, the Columbia University Center on Poverty and Social Policy, the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research, and the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis. Hardy’s research looks at intra- and inter-generational economic outcomes across three overlapping themes: income and consumption volatility among low-income families, analysis of U.S. income transfer policies and programs for low-income families, and the role of race and place as determinants of economic and policy outcomes. Hardy is also a member of the American Economic Association Committee on Economic Statistics and coeditor of Contemporary Economic Policy.

Board members who were re-elected to serve second terms include Aparna Mathur, Alaine Perry, Robert Espinoza, and Merrill Friedman, who will continue serving as the Academy’s Treasurer and a member of its Executive Committee.

***

With the start of the new year, the Academy is also excited to announce the addition of two of the nation’s leading social insurance experts–Michele Evermore and Jason Fichtner–as Senior Fellows to bolster the organization’s growing policy team.

Michele Evermore will focus on improving and modernizing the nation’s unemployment insurance system, improving access to benefits, and centering people in the design of benefits tech. One of the nation’s leading experts on unemployment insurance, Evermore most recently served as a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a visiting non-resident fellow at the Heldrich Center at Rutgers University, and a visiting faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Labor Center. She also served in the Biden Administration, where she pioneered and led the Department of Labor’s Office on UI Modernization. A longtime Academy Member, Evermore recently served as Principal Investigator of the Academy’s bipartisan Task Force on Modernizing Unemployment Insurance.

“Michele’s fierce leadership on unemployment insurance and benefits tech makes her an invaluable asset to the Academy’s work,” said the Academy’s Chief Executive Officer Rebecca Vallas. “We have learned time and again that the policy sector cannot afford to focus on unemployment insurance only during recessions—and the Academy is incredibly lucky to have Michele joining us to build on her critical work with the Academy’s Task Force on Modernizing UI.”

Jason Fichtner has also joined the Academy as a Senior Fellow. With decades of experience in the retirement policy space, and many years on the Academy’s Board of Directors, Fichtner also serves as the Executive Director of the Retirement Income Institute at the Alliance for Lifetime Income and a Senior Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and is on the Board of Directors for the FINRA Investor Education Foundation. His areas of expertise include Social Security, federal tax policy, federal budget policy, retirement security, and policy proposals to increase saving and investment.

“Jason’s tremendous ability to work across the ideological spectrum is just one of the many reasons I deeply enjoy working with him,” said the Academy’s Chief Executive Officer Rebecca Vallas. “I look forward to continuing to work with him in this new role to foster bipartisan momentum on commonsense policy reforms such as modernizing SSI’s antiquated asset limits and other opportunities for cross-sector agreement.”

***

Finally, the Academy is thrilled to welcome a diverse and distinguished class of 64 social insurance leaders as new Members, who were inducted at the Academy’s Annual Membership Meeting last week. Academy Members are nominated by current Members in recognition of significant professional contributions, such as improving the quality of research, administration, or policymaking in one or more areas of social insurance. Members make important contributions to the Academy’s policy, research, education, and leadership development initiatives by serving on expert study panels, task forces, working groups, and committees; speaking at conferences and other Academy events; and serving as collaborators for Academy initiatives.

“We’re thrilled to welcome our newly elected Members, whose diverse expertise—from research and policymaking to advocacy and service—will help shape the Academy’s work at this pivotal moment,” said Robert Espinoza, a Member of the Academy’s Board of Directors and Chair of the Membership Committee.

Newly elected Academy Members and their affiliations at the time of nomination:

Joan Antolin, Asset Funders Network

Alan Barber, The Roosevelt Institute

Alison Barkoff, George Washington University

Rachel Black, Aspen Institute

Robert Blancato, Matz, Blancato & Associates

Karen Bledsoe, ABT Associates

Tiffany Boiman, Dept of Labor, Women’s Bureau

Matthew Bryant, WorkComp Strategies

David Camp, National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives

Galen Carey, National Association of Evangelicals

Claire Casey, AARP Foundation

Makini Chisolm-Straker, Mount Sinai Health System

Amber Christ, Justice in Aging

Leanne Clark-Shirley, American Society on Aging

Kristen Dama, Community Legal Services of Philadelphia

Renee Ferguson, Social Security Administration

Ernie Fletcher, Fletcher Group

LesLeigh Ford, Urban Institute

Mary Gable, AFSCME

Nan Gibson, JP Morgan Chase Policy Center

Sharita Gruberg, National Partnership for Women & Families

Dave Guarino, Propel, Inc.

Katie Hadji, Office of Senator Bill Cassidy

Laura Haltzel, Social Security Administration

Natalie Hengstebeck, Office of Management and Budget

Jennifer Hoef, Office of Management and Budget

Jeff Holland, Peterson Foundation

Nev Jones, University of Pittsburgh, School of Social Work

Patrick Kennedy, Healthsperien

Michael Linden, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

Heather Lore, International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions

Joshua McCabe, Niskanen Center

Tara McGuiness, New America, New Practice Lab

Ari Ne’eman, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Katy Neas, The Arc of the United States

Lettie Nocera, Bipartisan Policy Center

Stephen Nunez, The Roosevelt Institute

Aisha Nyandoro, Springboard to Opportunities

Helaine Olen, American Economic Liberties Project

Sharon Parrott, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Natasha Pilkauskus, University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Sue Popkin, Urban Institute

Kristine Quinio, Social Security Administration

Jason Resendez, National Alliance for Caregiving

Katie Savin, California State University, Sacramento

Jessica Schubel, White House Domestic Policy Council

Chantel Sheaks, US Chamber of Commerce

Sherronda Sheppard, Social Security Administration

Heidi Shierholz, Economic Policy Institute

Jude Soundar, Microsoft US Government Affairs

Emerson Sprick, Bipartisan Policy Center

Pete Subkoviak, Resilient Families Hub

Catherine Surbeck, Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board

Margaret Swarbrick, Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies, Rutgers University Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology

Bonnielin Swenor, Johns Hopkins University

Jamila Taylor, Institute for Women’s Policy Research

Maria Town, American Association of People with Disabilities

Amy Traub, National Employment Law Project

Daniel Van Sant, The Harkin Institute

Polina Vlasenko, Social Security Administration

Deborah Wagner, Cornell University

Sarah Wartell, Urban Institute

Elizabeth Wikler, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Daniel Wilson, National Council on Aging