Ruthie Liberman, MSA is the Vice President for Public Policy at Economic Mobility Pathways (EMPath) an organization whose mission is to help people move out of poverty and to provide the tools for other organizations to do the same.  Ruthie has a Bachelor’s Degree from Pomona College in government and public policy as well as a Masters Degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. With 25 years of experience in nonprofit strategy, policy and program management, Ruthie has spent over fifteen years at EMPath (formerly known as Crittenton Women’s Union), and previously worked in major hospital settings such as Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She also ran a Pediatric and Family AIDS program at Dimock Community Health Center.  A native of California, Ruthie served as a Senate Fellow in the California Legislature and as the Director of Public Policy for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles.

Frieda Molina, MCP has over 20 years of experience providing technical and operational assistance to workforce development service providers. She is deputy director of MDRC’s Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area, and co-directs the MDRC Center for Effective Career and Technical Education. She is currently the project director for WorkAdvance, a multisite demonstration project funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service through the Social Innovation Fund. Molina also works on the national Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Employment and Training Pilot Project evaluation, a 10-state evaluation funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, and on the national Workforce Investment Act Evaluation of Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs, a 30-site evaluation funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. She holds a master’s degree in city and regional planning from the University of California at Berkeley and a BA in anthropology from Pomona College.