WHO WE ARE

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Janet Mancini Billson, PhD, CCS

GDI Director

As founder and Director of Group Dimensions International, Janet has consulted for over 35 years in organizational development, international development, resettlement, and social policy. She is known for deftly bringing out both practical and theoretical analyses of qualitative data drawn from key informant, executive, and focus group interviews. Her clients include foundations, hospitals, universities, and government agencies in Canada and the U.S; the World Bank Group, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the African Development Bank; Canada’s International Development Research Centre; and the World Food Program, UNESCAP, and UNWomen. She recently conducted a qualitative study to evaluate the World Bank’s Group’s Global Gender Strategy and the IFC’s investment role in private education in developing countries. She conducted a rapid research study, “What Works in Higher Education? An Analysis of Indicators Supported by Research,” for the Independent Evaluation Group, World Bank. Her previous work in education has included evaluation of STEM field programs offered through Brown and Harvard universities to transition high school students into university, and bachelor-level students into graduate work in math and science.

Janet is former Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Rhode Island College and The George Washington University. She received her graduate degrees in Sociology from Brandeis University under Woodrow Wilson and NIMH Field Work Fellowships. She has lectured widely on women in development, female well-being, refugees, resettlement, and the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals. She is the recipient of several national awards in applied sociology, including the Lester F. Ward Distinguished Contributions to Applied and Clinical Sociology Award, the Stuart A. Rice Career Achievement Award, the Lifetime Award for Sociological Practice, and Alumni of the Year Award, Baldwin-Wallace College.

Janet has served as Visiting Scholar, Well-Being in Developing Countries Research Group, University of Bath, and Honorary Research Fellow, University of Exeter, England. She is currently an External Affiliate, Centre for Refugee Studies, York University, Toronto, and an Affiliate Member of the Canadian-American Center, University of Maine, Orono. She was named Killam Visiting Professor in Canadian Studies, Minnoch Center for Global Exchange, Bridgewater State University (2021). Her keynote speech for the 2019 AACS Annual Meeting focused on the Sustainable Development Goals as a roadmap for sociological practice. 

Author of several books on identity, marginality, resettlement, and social change, her most recent work includes Refugee Pathways to Freedom: Escaping Persecution and Statelessness (Lexington Books, 2024); Refugee Pathways to Peace: Escaping the Chaos of War(forthcoming, Lexington Books, Fall 2024); and People of Peace: The Doukhobor Search for Freedom in Canada (forthcoming, University of British Columbia Press, 2025). She is also author of Keepers of the Culture: The Power of Tradition in Women's Lives (1995), based on interviews with indigenous, immigrant, and religious minority women in Canada, and co-author of Female Well-Being: Towards a Global Theory of Social Change with Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban (2006); Inuit Women: Their Powerful Spirit in A Century of Change with Kyra Mancini); and Cool Pose: Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America with Richard Majors (1992-1996).

Consulting work has taken Janet to over 40 countries, which has given her a broad view of global issues, as well as the global compacts and international bodies that are meant to address them. Born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Janet spent her adolescence in British Columbia. At 16, she moved to Washington, DC, where her father was posted with the Canadian Army. She is a dual Canada-US citizen and lives in Saco, Maine.

Sophia Catsambis, PhD, 

Research Associate

Sophia is Professor Emerita of Sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). She received her Ph.D. from New York University. For over 30 years, she trained undergraduate and graduate students in data analytics and statistics. At Queens College, she served as Director of the MA Program in Data Analytics and Applied Social Research. Her work addresses national equity concerns in education through the use of large-scale longitudinal survey data. She has studied issues such as gender and race differences in STEM performance and opportunity; inter-relationships among family, community, and school; ability grouping and tracking elementary and secondary education; parental involvement in secondary education; and social equality in access to higher education. Her work has received national attention 

and has been published in major educational peer reviewed journals.

Catsambis has received major research awards, including a National Institute of Health (NICHD) Research Award, National Institute of Health (NICHD) Collaborative Research Award, NSF Research Awards, and the AERA Jeanne Griffith Fellowship at NCES, U.S. Department of Education. She also received an AERA Research Award and research contracts from various organizations related to education, including a Ford Foundation Diversity Initiative, Queens College Research Mentoring Grant. 

 Catsambis has served in many honorific positions such as Research Associate and then Visiting Scholar, Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR) at Johns Hopkins University, and Research Consultant at the Office of Institutional Research, CUNY. As author of dozens of articles and research reports in the field of education, Catsambis has also served on the editorial board of Sociology of Education, the NSF National Review Panel, the National Advisory Research Panel for NHES Survey, NCES, U.S.DOE, and the National Advisory Research Panel, AAUW. She is a dual Greece-US citizen and lives in Hilton Head, South Carolina.