Lynn Barendsen
Lynn Barendsen (she/her) is a Project Director. For over two and a half decades she has been a part of The Good Project, which is a large-scale effort to identify individuals and institutions that exemplify good work - work that is excellent in quality, socially responsible, and meaningful to its practitioners - and to determine how best to increase the incidence of good work in our society. Lynn has led numerous presentations and workshops on Good Work-related topics and teaches annually at the PZ Summer Classroom, which hosts educators from around the world. She is a regular contributor to The Good Project’s blog, has published on young workers in a global age, social and business entrepreneurs, “caring” professionals, the elements of leadership and more. With GP colleagues, she has developed webinars and curricula to facilitate the teaching of key Good Work-related concepts such as responsibility and alignment and to support individuals to consider their values and beliefs in work and beyond. Lynn received her B.A. from Bates College and an M.A. in English and American Literatures and Language from the University of Chicago.
Alison Cantor
Alison Cantor (she/her) is a research assistant for The Good Project. Previously, Alison was a Development Assistant on the Principal Gifts team within the University Development Office in Alumni Affairs Development at Harvard. She graduated from Brandeis University with a major in sociology and a minor in social justice and social policy.
Shelby Clark
Shelby Clark (she/her) is a Principal Investigator. She currently leads work with The Good Project’s lesson plans in a study funded by the Templeton Foundation. She co-led the Investigating Impacts of Educational Experience project, a longitudinal study investigating the educational impact of the United World Colleges. Shelby’s work focuses on the development of intellectual and civic character strengths in adolescents and young adults, with a focus on strengths such as curiosity and open-mindedness. She received her Ph.D. in applied human development from Boston University, an M.A. from the George Washington University in school counseling, and a B.A. in history and music from Johns Hopkins University. Shelby formerly worked as a school counselor in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Wendy Fischman
Wendy Fischman (she/her) is a Project Director. She joined Project Zero in 1995 as a researcher with Project Co-Arts, a study of educationally effective community art centers. Since 1996, she has managed various aspects of The Good Project, specifically focused on the meaning of work in the lives of young children, adolescents, and novice professionals, as well as ethics in higher education. With Howard Gardner, her book The Real World of College was published in 2022. She has previously written about education and human development in several scholarly and popular articles. She is lead also author of Making Good: How Young People Cope with Moral Dilemmas at Work (2004). Wendy co-developed learning materials about the concept of “good work.” She received a BA from Northwestern University.
Shinri Furuzawa
Shinri Furuzawa (she/her) is Office and Research Manager. She joined Project Zero in 2018 and oversees the offices of Howard Gardner. She is involved in a project exploring the development of ethics in preschool-aged children around the world. She received a B.A. in history from the University of Nottingham, UK, and an ALM in psychology from Harvard Extension School.
Howard Gardner
Howard Gardner (he/him) is the Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is a leading thinker on education and human development; he has studied and written extensively about intelligence, creativity, leadership, and professional ethics. With Wendy Fischman, Gardner has recently completed a national study of higher education. A book on the study, The Real World of College, was published in March 2022 by MIT Press. He also directed an international study of the United World Colleges, a network of secondary schools. His intellectual memoir, A Synthesizing Mind, was published in 2020 by MIT Press. His current work can be followed at howardgardner.com.
Kirsten McHugh
Kirsten McHugh (she/her) is a Project Manager. She began working at Project Zero as a summer intern in 2006 before graduating from The University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 2008, she joined the team full-time and is now a Project Manager. She previously worked on a study which seeks to determine how the goals and content of a traditional four year residential education might be reconfigured for future generations. She currently works on a study of how educators use a set of lesson plans focused on “good work.”
Danny Mucinskas
Danny Mucinskas (he/him) is a Project Manager. He joined Project Zero in 2012. For The Good Project, he has overseen the initiative’s digital presence, as well as connections with partners and practitioners. He previously worked on a multi-year research study investigating the educational impacts of United World Colleges and a number of other diverse international schools. He holds an Ed.M. in Education Policy and Analysis from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in History and International Relations from Boston University.
Annie Stachura
Annie Stachura (she/her) is a Faculty Assistant for Howard Gardner. She joined our team in 2023. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Connecticut and is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College.