Joan Wallace-Benjamin, PhD ’80, the president and CEO of The Home for Little Wanderers and a former head of the Urban League of Massachusetts, was named chief of staff for Massachusetts Governor-elect Deval Patrick. Wallace-Benjamin earned her doctorate from Brandeis’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She is a member of Heller’s Board of Overseers.
Since February 2003, Wallace-Benjamin has served as president and chief executive officer of The Home for Little Wanderers (biography), the nation’s oldest and New England’s largest, private, non-profit child and family service agency.
She was president and CEO of The Urban League of Massachusetts from 1989-2000, and earlier served as the director of operations for Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston, deputy director of ABCD Head Start, and a research analyst for ABT Associates.
Dr. Wallace-Benjamin's selection, according to the Boston Globe, "is another signal from Patrick that he intends to fulfill his pledge to build a diverse team of leaders to guide the first Democratic administration in 16 years."
Read the story in the Boston Globe.