Porter-Cason Institute Board Members

The Porter-Cason Institute Advisory Board is comprised for not less than nine members and no more than 15 members with at least one board member serving as a full-time faculty member at the Tulane School of Social Work. Each board member shall serve a three-year term with the term beginning and ending during the annual meeting. Below are some brief biographies of our 11 member board.

Dr. Rhea Almeida is founder of the Institute of Family Services and is a family therapist. She has 25 years experience as a teacher, therapist, consultant, speaker and author.  She is the creator of the Cultural Context Model.  She has served on the editorial boards of several distinguished journals in the field including The Journal of Cultural Diversity and Mental Health and The Journal of Feminist Family Therapy.  She currently serves on the advisory board for the Department of Counseling and Human Services at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. and the Cultural Diversity Committee for NASW/NJ.  She has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, CNBC, National Public Radio, USA Today and Pure Oxygen.

Dr. Harry Aponte has publications on family therapy, training and supervision in therapy, working with people of diverse ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, and spirituality in therapy. He has lectured and conducted workshops throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Latin America, Europe and Asia. He received postgraduate training at the Menninger Clinic, and worked there in a variety of capacities, including as a supervisor and teacher.  From Topeka, he came to Philadelphia to work at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic of which he eventually became the director. Dr. Aponte is a Fellow of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, and a Board Certified Diplomate in Clinical Social Work. Among other honors, he received the award for Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy and Practice from the American Family Therapy Academy in 1992, and the award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Marriage and Family Therapy from the Association for Marriage and Family Therapy in 2001.  He also received the I. Arthur Marshall Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Menninger Clinic in 1997. Dr. Aponte received the Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (honoris causa) from Drexel University in 2004, and the Degree of Doctor of Public Service (honoris causa) from the University of Maryland in 2006.nois University, Pacific Lutheran University, and the University of Connecticut.

Celia Jaes Falicov, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned family therapy author, teacher and clinician. A licensed clinical psychologist, she is a Clinical Professor in Family, and Preventive Medicine and Voluntary Faculty in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. She is also the Director of Mental Health Services at the UCSD Medical Student-run Free Clinic. She serves on the Advisory Board of several family therapy journals and is Past President (1999-2001) of the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA). Dr. Falicov pioneered writings on the topics of family transitions, migration, and cultural perspectives in family therapy and has received many professional awards for her distinguished contributions. Her MECA Model (Multisystemic Ecological Comparative Approach) integrates cultural and sociopolitical dimensions across many cultural groups and is used widely in training settings, as is her acclaimed book, Latino Families in Therapy: A Guide to Multicultural Practice. Additionally, Dr. Falicov’s community work addresses the mental health needs of at-risk immigrant clients, facilitating empowerment groups for parents of various cultural groups, and training clinical students and practitioners to attend to the impact of migration, prolonged separation, and culture on health and mental health risks and strengths.

Dr. Peter Fraenkel is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and Environmental Psychology at the City College of the City University of New York and is Director of the Ackerman Institute’s Center for Work and Family which includes empirically-supported, community-based programs for families facing the challenges of homelessness, domestic violence, and immigration.  Dr. Fraenkel is co-author of The relational trauma of incest: A family-based approach to treatment.  He is the author of numerous publications on work and family, collaborative community-based family programs, integrative approaches to systemic therapy, and child sexual abuse.  He is a co-recipient of the 2004 American Family Therapy Academy’s Award for Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy Theory and Practice.  He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the journal Family Process and is on the editorial boards of Family Process, the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, and Psychoanalytic Psychology.  He is also a contributing editor for the Psychotherapy Networker and past Vice President of AFTA.


Dr. Judith S. Lewis is an Associate Professor and Director of Field Education and Coordinator of Student Affairs at the Tulane School of Social Work. Dr. Lewis earned her MSW from Syracuse University and her PhD from the University of Maryland. Her teaching specialties including research, human behavior, practice methods, and field.  Her research interests and activities center on campus and community violence prevention, social justice models for clinical/community practice, resilience in older adults, and integration of field and curriculum.  Dr. Lewis is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and a Board Approved Clinical Supervisor (BACS) with particular practice expertise in the area of social work with groups.


Dr. Teresa McDowell is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Counseling at Lewis & Clark College.  Dr. McDowell has spent much of her career working to revise marriage and family therapy education in ways that better support social equity and cultural democracy.  Her scholarship has focused on race/racism in family therapy practice and education, critical multicultural family research and internationalizing family therapy programs.  Recently her research agenda has included expanding critical multiculturalism in family therapy to include an international focus that addresses disparity and promotes global citizenship.  She has written extensively on these subjects.  Dr. McDowell is a long time clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and an AAMFT approved supervisor.  Prior to joining the faculty of Lewis & Clark College, Dr. McDowell taught at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT.  While there, she served as Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Doctoral and Master’s programs.  Dr. McDowell also taught family therapy at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA and at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL.  She also directed university family therapy clinics at Northern.

Dr. William Madsen is the Founder and Director of the Family Centered Services Project. He provides international training and consultation regarding collaborative approaches to therapy and the development of institutional cultures that support family-centered work. Dr Madsen was the Director of the Program in Narrative Therapies at the Family Institute of Cambridge and a Senior Associate at the Public Conversations Project.  He has spent most of the last 30 years working with multi-stressed families in public sector mental health, social service and health care settings.  He has developed and administered innovative programs that combine outpatient and home-based services and has written and presented extensively about the development of strengths-based, collaborative partnerships between families and helpers.  He has authored several books including   Collaborative Therapy with Multi-Stressed Families (2nd Edition) He actively works and writes about a framework of "collaborative helping" for family support workers, case managers, and milieu workers. His work has been profoundly influenced by clinical approaches such as Narrative, Collaborative and Solution-Focused Therapies, by organizational approaches such as Appreciative Inquiry and the Public Conversations Project, by involvement in family-centered services, wraparound and systems of care approaches and perhaps most of all by learning from clients and client groups.

Dr. Barbara Soniat is an associate professor at the Catholic University of America’s National Catholic School of Social Service (NCSSS) and director of its Center on Global Aging. She is the co-author of NASW publication: Empowering Social Workers for Practice with Vulnerable Older Adults. She teaches MSW practice courses and a course on clinical social work practice with older adults, and she is co-principal investigator for a Council on Social Work Education gero-ed project. Dr. Soniat also serves as a commissioner for the American Bar Association’s Commission on Law and Aging. She has worked in the fields of social work and gerontology for over 30 years. For over 20 years, her career effectively integrated clinical practice, research, teaching, and interdisciplinary field-based education of professional students. Dr. Soniat is the former long-time director of the George Washington University (GWU) and IONA Senior Services geriatric assessment and case management programs, where for over two decades she implemented collaborative partnerships between a university medical center (GWU), a public agency (the Washington, DC, Office on Aging), a private agency (IONA Senior Services), and several schools of social work (NCSSS, Howard University, University of Maryland, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Alabama) and departments of psychiatry (GWU and Georgetown University). Through these endeavors, she has worked with many social workers, case managers, student learners, and colleagues to develop, test, modify, and refine models and tools for education, research, and practice with vulnerable older adults. Dr. Soniat has a strong interest in pursuing answers to practice-generated research questions. She is a featured speaker at national, international, regional, and local conferences.  He provides international training and consultation regarding collaborative approaches to therapy and the development of institutional cultures that support family-centered work. Dr Madsen was the Director of the Program in Narrative Therapies at the Family Institute of Cambridge and a Senior Associate at the Public Conversations Project.  He has spent most of the last 30 years working with multi-stressed families in public sector mental health, social service and health care settings.  He has developed and administered innovative programs that combine outpatient and home-based services and has written and presented extensively about the development of strengths-based, collaborative partnerships between families and helpers.  He has authored several books including   Collaborative Therapy with Multi-Stressed Families (2nd Edition) He actively works and writes about a framework of "collaborative helping" for family support workers, case managers, and milieu workers. His work has been profoundly influenced by clinical approaches such as Narrative, Collaborative and Solution-Focused Therapies, by organizational approaches such as Appreciative Inquiry and the Public Conversations Project, by involvement in family-centered services, wraparound and systems of care approaches and perhaps most of all by learning from clients and client groups. .

Dr. Lynn Pearlmutter is an Associate Professor at the Tulane School of Social Work, where she earned her PhD in 1990. Dr. Pearlmutter served as a field supervisor and adjunct professor for many years prior to joining the full-time faculty at Tulane. Before joining TSSW's faculty, she worked for more than 20 years in agency practices in Chicago, Berkeley, Pittsburgh and New Orleans, specializing in child, family, couples and group therapy. Dr. Pearlmutter’s dissertation, practice, workshops and publications focus on her area of specialization: couples therapy.



Andre Stern currently practices in New Orleans and earned this MSW from Tulane in 1980. Stern has spent more than 20 years in private practice along with his time in the New Orleans Public school system as well as Catholic Charities and Family Services. He was an associate of Liz Rayne. He works on communication within families and the mind/body connection in communication and relationships.



Dr. Froma Walsh, MSW, PhD is Mose and Sylvia Firestone Professor Emeriti in the School of Social Service Administration and Department of Psychiatry, Pritzker School of Medicine, at the University of Chicago. She also holds an appointment as Clinical Professor, Applied Psychological & Family Studies, Northwestern University.  Co-Director and Co-Founder of the Chicago Center for Family Health.  Dr. Walsh is a leading authority on family resilience. She has developed a resilience-oriented, community-based practice approach to strengthen families in crisis (e.g. major trauma; loss); in disruptive transitions (separation, divorce; migration); and facing challenges of persistent, multi-stress conditions (e.g. illness, disability; economic hardship). Her research-informed Family Resilience Framework is widely applied in intervention and prevention efforts. She is also a leading expert on contemporary family diversity and multi-faith spiritual perspectives. Her approach addresses developmental, systemic, cultural, and spiritual influences in suffering, healing, and resilience. Dr. Walsh is a frequent speaker and consultant nationally and internationally on resilience-oriented community mental health training, practice, and research. With over 90 publications, her books include: Strengthening Family Resilience, (2nd Ed., 2006); Spiritual Resources in Family Therapy (2nd Ed., 2009); Normal Family Processes: Growing Diversity and Complexity (3rd Ed., 2003); Living Beyond Loss: Death in the Family (2nd ed. 2004); Chronic Disorders and the Family andWomen in Families. 

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