ACE Foundation Leadership
Board Members & Officers
Marsha Wineburgh, DSW, LCSW-R
President
Arthur A. Gray, PhD, CGP
Treasurer
Arthur A. Gray, PhD, an honorary member of the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity (IPSS), is faculty, supervisor, and serves on its Coordinating Committee. Other faculty/supervisory positions are: the Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society’s Group Therapy Department, the Training Institute for Mental Health, and Adelphi University. He is: Council Member of the International Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology (IAPS), on the Institute Committee of the American Group Psychotherapy Association, and on the editorial board of the Psychoanalytic Inquiry Journal. He consults with self psychology groups in South Africa and in Japan, and conducts supervision online using his group supervision model. His published articles apply self psychology and subjectivity theory to individual, couples, group, and supervision. He has a specific interest in how improvisation informs the therapeutic process. His latest publication is, “Living Truthfully Under Imaginary Circumstances: Improvisation in Psychoanalysis,” in Psychoanalytic Dialogues 2015. In private practice in New York City, Arthur treats adults using individual, couples, and group psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
Karen E. Baker, MSW
Member-at-large
Michael Crocker, Ph.D.
Member-at-large
Jerry Floersch, PhD, LCSW
Member-at-large
Jerry Floersch is an associate professor of social work at Rutgers University. Dr. Floersch is the author of Meds, Money, and Manners: The Case Management of Severe Mental Illness, published by Columbia University Press (2002), where, utilizing ethnographic and socio-historical methods, he examined the rise of community support services, the rise of the case manager and case management. He is a NIMH K08 recipient (2004-2009) for training in and development of qualitative methods to study youth subjective experience of psychotropic treatment. Dr. Floersch conducted a follow-up ethnography to Meds, Money & Manners, which led to a second book, On Having and Being a Case Manager (2010). His research/practice methodology is developed in a book Qualitative Methods for Practice Research (2013), published on Oxford University Press. From 2010 to 2017 he was the director of Rutger’s DSW program, where he developed a case study method and curriculum for advanced clinical training. He is the past co-president (2017-2019) of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work. In 2019 he was inducted as a fellow in the Society for Social Work and Research, the flagship society for social work research.
Dr. Floersch has practiced across many settings: in-patient hospitals, outpatient substance abuse, and community mental health centers and has expertise with adolescents and young adults, especially among those having difficulty making transitions from home to college, home to work, or from home to independent living.
Helen Goldberg, LCSW-R
Member-At-Large
Karen Kaufman, Ph.D., LCSW-R
President, New York State Society for Clinical Social Work
Shannon Boyle, LCSW
Past President, New York State Society For Clinical Social Work
Our Programming Team
Kara Dean-Assael, DSW, LMSW
Director of Professional Development
Dr. Kara Dean-Assael has been working in the social work field since 1997. As an innovator, she develops, coordinates, manages, produces, and facilitates various programs, projects, and trainings both locally and nationally. From 2006-2013, she was a collaborative member of the research team that developed, tested, and disseminated the nationally known evidence-based treatment, the “4 Rs and 2 Ss for Strengthening Families Program” and currently trains mental health practitioners on the model.
In 2012, she co-founded the 501c3 Fareground, Inc., an anti-hunger program focusing on food justice in Dutchess County, NY, and surrounding areas. Dr. Dean-Assael is passionate about collaboratively creating and disseminating programs and practices to improve mental health and outcomes for youth, families, and adults and centering human rights. She served on the Commission on Human Rights in the City of Beacon, NY from 2020-2024.
Dr. Dean-Assael holds a BA in Psychology with Minors in both Sociology and Women’s Studies from West Virginia University (1996), an MSW degree from Columbia University School of Social Work (2001), and a Doctorate in Clinical Social Welfare from New York University (2020). As a native of West Virginia, she’s attached to her roots of family and resilience.
Susan A. Klett, Ph.D., Psy.D., LCSW-R
Consultant
