Staff
Elizabeth (Betsy) Leutz, M.S.Ed. | Executive Director
Betsy Leutz is the Executive Director of Connected Beginnings Training Institute. A long-time colleague of Libby Zimmerman, Connected Beginning’s founding Executive Director, Dr. Zimmerman tapped Ms. Leutz to help her launch and build Connected Beginnings. Serving initially as Senior Program Director, Ms. Leutz functioned as the organization’s Acting Executive Director from July 2009 until her appointment as Executive Director in March, 2010. Ms. Leutz has more than 30 years of experience in the field of infant and early childhood development and has held a number of organizational leadership roles. With a career in infant and early childhood health and development, Ms. Leutz has focused on bringing an interdisciplinary understanding of infant and early childhood theory to professional practice. At Connected Beginnings she worked with Dr. Zimmerman to develop and evaluate professional development training curricula. She also serves as a mentor to infant and early childhood professionals who serve as Connected Beginnings’ trainers/facilitators.
Prior to her work at Connected Beginnings, Ms. Leutz served from 1995-2007 as Director of Program Services and then as Director of Development at Thom Child & Family Services, in Natick, MA. During her years at Thom she developed, oversaw, and supervised Thom’s Early Intervention, Consultation and Training Programs. As Director of Development, Ms. Leutz wrote and managed grants and oversaw fundraising activities. She also helped create and co-authored Thom’s Jump, Jiggle and Jive™ music and movement curriculum for infants, toddlers, and their caregivers, and, in 2004, she collaborated with Libby Zimmerman to create the IN-TIME Training in Infant Mental Health. Ms. Leutz’ experience also includes directing Early Intervention and Preschool programs in Lowell, MA, work as a preschool and kindergarten teacher in Cambridge, MA and New York City and as a child care consultant.
Among her professional activities, Ms. Leutz has served as a member of the advisory committee for the Massachusetts Interagency Coordinating Council (ICC) and for The Early Intervention Training Center Advisory Committee. She also served on the board of The Massachusetts Early Intervention Consortium. Ms. Leutz is a founding member of the Massachusetts Association for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health and a member of the Massachusetts State Planning Team for its CSEFEL technical assistance and training grant. She holds a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Education from The City University of New York, a Bachelor’s degree from Boston University, and is a certified Early Intervention Specialist, Early Intervention Director, IN-TIME, CSEFEL and Mind in the Making Facilitator.
Mallary I. Swartz, Ph.D. | Director of Research and Evaluation
Mallary Swartz is Director of Research and Evaluation at Connected Beginnings Training Institute. Her primary areas of expertise are in the field of early care and education. They include parent-provider and provider-child relationships in child care settings, child care quality, social and emotional development of young children, and evaluation of training programs for early childhood professionals. Mallary’s published work focuses on parent-provider relationships and young children’s development and learning in early care and education settings. She has presented both nationally and internationally on these topics.
Mallary’s work at Connected Beginnings focuses on designing, conducting, and directing evaluation studies of training and professional development initiatives. Prior to coming to Connected Beginnings, she worked on numerous research and evaluation projects related to early care and education at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, at the University of Pittsburgh, at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, and at Tufts University, where she worked as a research analyst on the Evaluation of the Touchpoints Early Care and Education Initiative.
Mallary’s applied work includes her role as Director of Special Projects at the University of Pittsburgh Child Development Center, where she directed a consulting program designed to enhance the quality of care in community child care centers. During her time at Tufts, Mallary worked with organizations in New Orleans to help rebuild and enhance the quality of child care and to develop a family child care curriculum for the state of Louisiana. She also served as a teaching assistant for several undergraduate and graduate courses in child development. Mallary has also worked as an infant and toddler teacher and as editor of early childhood programming for a web-based company geared toward families and teachers of young children.
Mallary earned her Ph.D. in Applied Child Development from the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University. She also completed an M.S. in Applied Developmental Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, and a B.A. in Psychology from Duke University. She joined Connected Beginnings in September 2007.
Kim Comart, J.D. | Interim Associate Director
Kim Comart is Interim Associate Director at Connected Beginnings Training Institute. Kim is the principal of Comart & Associates, a Newton-based management consulting firm founded in 1995. Comart & Associates provides consulting services to community-based organizations, private and corporate foundations, United Ways and government agencies in the areas of program and organizational development, strategic planning, executive coaching, interim management, fundraising, program evaluation and mergers.
Before starting the consulting business, Kim worked for six years at the United Way of Massachusetts Bay in Boston, where he served as Vice President for Community Investments. During his tenure at the United Way, he oversaw multi-year collaborative funding initiatives in the areas of neighborhood safety, affordable housing, childcare, and early childhood development. Prior to his service at the United Way, Kim worked in Massachusetts state government, electoral politics and public interest law. Kim received his B.A. from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law.
Mary Watson Avery, M.S. | Professional Development Specialist
Mary Watson Avery, M.S. is the Professional Development Specialist of Connected Beginnings Training Institute. Her career has focused on infants, toddlers and preschoolers and their families. Her special interests include the professional development and continuing education of individuals working with families; the play of typical and traumatized children; and therapeutic parent education. She has been a teacher, administrator and consultant in several urban early childhood education and care programs in New York City and the greater Boston area. She has served as the Assistant Director to the Gilday Center (Roxbury, MA) and the Parent Center (Brighton, MA), both innovative child care programs emphasizing family preservation and parent engagement. Mary is a former faculty member of Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she served as the coordinator of the early childhood practicum sites for the Risk and Prevention Program, and co-instructed a yearlong course in child development and best practice.
Since joining the Connected Beginnings team, Mary has focused her efforts on planning IN-TIME trainings, co-leading mentoring groups for Mind in the Making facilitators, and contributing to the Training Institute’s role in the state-wide roll-out of the CSEFEL Pyramid Model. She has co-authored the curriculum The Foundations of the CSEFEL Pyramid (Avery, Anthony, Leutz, McCracken, O’Neill & Robey) and is a member of the Massachusetts Master Cadre of trainers and coaches.
Prior to her work at Connected Beginnings, Mary was the Director of Family Connections, a community mental health outreach program based at Children’s Hospital Boston. During that time Mary coauthored the Family Connections Materials (Avery, Beardslee, Ayoub & Watts) and the Tell Me A Story Materials (Avery, Beardslee, Ayoub, Callejas & Watts). Mary earned a M.S. in Infant and Toddler Studies from Wheelock College and a BFA from Manhattanville College in Studio Art. A visual artist and writer as well, Mary co-authored and illustrated the children’s book, What Is Beautiful? (1995, Tricycle Press) with her husband David M. Avery.
Laura Beals, M.A. | Instructional Technology Manager
Laura Beals is the Instructional Technology Manager at Connected Beginnings and a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate at the
Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University
. Her primary areas of expertise are in the design and evaluation of technology, particularly virtual worlds, to support youth development, integration of technology into classrooms, and innovative technology-based research and evaluation methods for use with children and adolescents.
Prior to joining Connected Beginnings in 2008, Laura worked at the Center for Engineering Educational Outreach (CEEO) and currently is a senior member of the Developmental Technologies Research Group at Tufts University. She has published several articles focusing on virtual worlds technology for youth and has presented at national conferences on topics including robotics, online peer networks, and interactive technology programs for children and adults. Laura also completed a MA at Eliot-Pearson, with her thesis focusing on a new technology and methodology for observing early childhood classrooms. She graduated summa cum laude in an innovative multidisciplinary program combining Child Development with a BS from the College of Engineering at Tufts University.
Cathy Abbott, B.A. | Administrator
Cathy Abbott is the administrator at Connected Beginnings, where she joined the staff in 2008. She has worked as office manager at the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry, Boston, and was legislative aide with Representative Jay Kaufman at the Massachusetts State House. As a community volunteer, she served on the Board of Selectmen in Lexington, MA and as a trustee of the Lexington METCO Scholarship Fund. She has also assisted a public school library partnership in New York City
Cathy’s experience in early education includes teaching nursery school and providing home daycare. She has organized State House lobby days for the Massachusetts League of Women Voters and the Massachusetts Early Intervention Consortium, and has led training workshops for public policy advocacy for state and community groups.
Past Connected Beginnings Fellows
