Meet Our Experts

Jody Gastfriend, VP of Senior Care Services at Care.com, is a licensed clinical social worker with more than 25 years of experience in the field of eldercare.

Jody's broad range of leadership positions include Director of the Department of Social Services and Case Management at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Clinical Supervisor within the Social Service Department of Massachusetts General Hospital, Chief Operating Officer of a Medicare-certified visiting nurse association, and Director of Adult Care Services at a national backup care company where she established a successful and expansive eldercare division serving more than 130,000 employees.

Jody shares the personal journey of her clients, having helped manage the care of her own parent with dementia for more than a decade. She has consulted to individuals, professional societies and corporations in the field of eldercare. Additionally, Jody has lectured widely on topics related to aging and work/family balance to audiences that include family caregivers, HR administrators, health care professionals and policymakers. A featured senior care expert on NBC and Fox News, Jody is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post's Huff/Post50 section, and has published numerous articles on caregiving and aging, including a 5-part series in USA Today.

Jody received her BA, Magna Cum Laude, from Tufts University, and her Masters Degree in Social Work from Simmons College School of Social Work.

Carolyn brings 20 years of expertise in the childcare, nanny and corporate work-life industry to her work implementing Care.com's corporate programs. She is passionate about helping parents choose high quality child care programs and helping corporations choose high quality work–life programs.

Before coming to Care.com, Carolyn founded a nanny agency where she provided nanny placement and parent and nanny education. In previous positions, Carolyn supervised 7 childcare programs, over 160 teachers, and 7 directors for a national child care company. She ran childcare programs at Staples, EMC and Tufts New England Medical Center. She spent eleven years working for the founders of the corporate work-life industry, and there she supervised over 100 consultants who counseled over 100,000 employees of Fortune 500 companies nationally on child care, elder care, adoption, school-age issues, college counseling, mental health counseling, and parenting. Carolyn also consulted human resource professionals when she worked for an employee assistance program.

Carolyn's ability to relate to all of the players in care related fields and the work-life industry developed early on from her experiences as a teacher, after school care director, live-in nanny, and executive director of a program for adults with disabilities.

Carolyn's been interviewed by USA Today and Working Mother and she's judged the International Nanny of the Year competition for the International Nanny Association. She lectures at colleges on issues in childcare and leadership and she spends time encouraging students to choose careers working with children.

Carolyn holds a Masters Degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from Syracuse University and continued her education with leadership courses at Harvard University and Wheelock College. When not traveling around the country delivering seminars on child care, Carolyn loves to spend time at home in Boston with her husband, fourteen-year-old son, and twenty four-year-old step-daughter.

Melissa Chapman and her brood of three live in the urban, concrete jungle of NYC - that's two kids and her dog. Oh and she's got a husband too.

Melissa also writes "Kids in the City" a weekly column and blog for the Staten Island Advance, contributes to She Knows, Time Out NY Kids, iVillage, Loving You, Babble and Momtourage.

Read all of Melissa's blog posts at: http://blog.care.com/featured-columnists/melissa-chapman/

Deb Levy is a writer, graphic designer, mother-of-three and devotee of hip-hop dance.

She is writing two books about vastly divergent topics - the Holocaust and reaching goals. And in her spare time, Deb co-pens a blog with her husband that was inspired by the recession, aptly named And for Poorer.

Read all of Deb's blog posts at: http://blog.care.com/featured-columnists/deb-levy/

Ellen Seidman is a longtime magazine editor, devoted mother to Max and Sabrina and creator/writer of the award-winning blog, Love That Max, which focuses on children with special needs (her son has cerebral palsy).

Ellen has held top-level positions at Redbook, Good Housekeeping, SELF, Teen People (RIP!) and most recently at Glamour, where she was deputy editor for eight years and re-launched Glamour.com. She also contributed to the widely acclaimed essay anthology The Elephant in The Playroom. She is currently a freelance magazine editor who's worked with Martha Stewart Living, Body & Soul, In Style, American Baby and Redbook. She contributes to MomLogic, iVillage, Traveling Mom and The Huffington Post.

Ellen's editorial recognition includes ranking #20 in Babble's Top 50 Mom Bloggers, winning the Best Special Needs Blog Award from TheBump, and being a finalist for Best Parenting Blog by Nickelodeon Parents Connect.

The voice behind Mommy-in-the-Middle, Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novel, Fat Chick. She is also a freelance journalist, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, New York Post, The Huffington Post and many other publications. For more info visit www.lorraineduffymerkl.com.

Read Mommy-in-the-Middle at: http://blog.care.com/featured-columnists/mommy-in-the-middle/