CREA Affiliates (External)

Senior Distinguished Elder

Edmund W. Gordon (Yale University)

Edmund Gordon is the John M. Musser Professor of Psychology, Emeritus at Yale University, Richard March Hoe Professor, Emeritus of Psychology and Education, at Teachers College, Columbia University and Director Emeritus of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is also the Senior Scholar in Residence at the SUNY Rockland Community College. Professor Gordon’s distinguished career spans professional practice, scholarly life as a minister, clinical and counseling psychologist, research scientist, author, editor, and professor. He has held appointments at several of the nation’s leading universities including Howard, Yeshiva, Columbia, City University of New York, and Yale. Additionally, Gordon has served as visiting professor at City College of New York and Harvard University. From July 2000 until August, 2001, he was Vice President for Academic Affairs and Interim Dean of Faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University. Gordon has been recognized as a preeminent member of his discipline. He is an elected Fellow of various prestigious associations including the American Psychological Association, American Society of Psychological Science, the American Association for Orthopsychiatry and Fellow and Life Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1979 he was elected member of the National Academy of Education. Among his most recent honors is the Edmund W. Gordon Chair for Policy Evaluation and Research” created by the Educational Testing Service to recognize his lasting contributions to developments in education including Head Start, compensatory education, school desegregation, and supplementary education. In 2005 Columbia University named its campus in Harlem, N. Y. the Edmund W. Gordon Campus of Teachers College, Columbia University. In 2011-2013, Gordon served as the organizer and chair of the Gordon Commission in the Future of Assessment in Education. Gordon has been named one of America’s most prolific and thoughtful scholars. He is the author of more than 200 articles and 18 books.

CREA Affiliates (External)

Lisa Aponte - Soto (Tanoma Consulting, LLC)

Lisa Aponte-Soto, PhD, MHA is the President/CEO and founder of Tanoma Consulting LLC, a non-profit firm providing transformative research, evaluation, and training services to advance health, education, and workforce equity. She specializes in asset-based community-driven models using mixed methods research and evaluation approaches. She facilitates capacity building workshops on culturally responsive practices, leadership, strategic visioning, and quality assurance for diverse organizations. Dr. Aponte-Soto is also an adjunct faculty member at DePaul University where she currently teaches research methods and public health. She has nearly 20 publications and over 50 presentations including workshops and invited lectures on applying of culturally responsive methodology and practices for working with marginalized communities. Additionally, she has over 20 years of experience working with diverse communities conducting administrative operations, program management, grants management, research, and evaluation. Most recently, Dr. Lisa Aponte-Soto served as Associate Director of Community Engaged Research for the Office of Community Based Practice at the University of Illinois at Chicago Mile Square Health Center (MSHC), where she managed a portfolio of community-based research projects and conducted evidenced-based program, process, and outcomes evaluation to monitor progress, mitigate issues on an ongoing timely basis, and ensure continuous improvement. She is also the former National Program Deputy Director of New Connections, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) at Equal Measure providing research funding and career development training to historically underrepresented scholars. Dr. Aponte-Soto served as a Board member-at-large for the American Evaluation Association (AEA) from 2018-2021. She is also an alumna of the AEA Graduate Diversity Internship (GEDI) Program and a founding member and past chair of the AEA Latinx Responsive Evaluation Discourse (LaRED) Topical Interest Group. Dr. Aponte-Soto earned her PhD in Behavioral Science from the Division of Community Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health and holds a Master of Health Administration and Policy from Governors State University. She received a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Language, Literature, and Translation from Loyola University Chicago.

Keena Arbuthnot (Louisiana State University)

Dr. Keena Arbuthnot received a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, specializing in Psychometrics/Educational Measurement, Applied Statistics, and Program Evaluation. She holds an MEd in Educational Psychology and a BS in Mathematics. In 2005, Dr. Arbuthnot became a Lecturer on Education and a Post-doctoral Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is currently the Special Advisor to the President and the Joan Pender McManus Distinguished Professor of Education at Louisiana State University. Dr. Arbuthnot conducts research in the field of education. She has published many articles, has authored two books: Filling in the Blanks: Understanding the Black-White Achievement Gap and Global Perspective on Educational Testing: Examining Fairness, High-Stakes, and Policy Reform. She is recognized nationally and internationally for her research on standardized testing and assessments, test fairness issues, STEM education and achievement, and culturally responsive assessment. Dr. Arbuthnot started her career as a high school mathematics teacher and acknowledges that her experiences in the classroom still has a significant impact on her research and teaching.

Katrina Bledsoe (Abt Associates)

Katrina L. Bledsoe, Ph.D., is principal of Global Equity Diversity, Accessibility, and Inclusion at Abt Associates, the Washington DC metropolitan area, and senior advisor to Strategic Learning Partner for Innovation (SLP4i). She is a trained evaluator, mixed methodologist, and social psychologist with evaluation experience in both U.S. and international settings. Dr. Bledsoe’s evaluation work has focused on community-based social services, health and education evaluation and programming, mixed methodology and methods, theory-driven evaluation, culturally responsive and equity-focused approaches, and topics in applied social psychology. In her 25-year career, Dr. Bledsoe has served as principal investigator, co-principal investigator, or project director on a variety of projects, and has received grants and contracts for programs in mental and physical health, the arts, economic sustainability, education, and international development. She has served as a consultant to federal, state, and local government agencies such as the National Science Foundation and to schools, universities, foundations, and community-based organizations. At Abt Associates, she is responsible for developing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) strategies that center on culturally responsive research and evaluation approaches, theory-driven evaluation, and organizational learning. As Principal of Global EDI she serves as a thought leader on EDI both within and outside the organization, as it pertains to research and evaluation. Dr. Bledsoe currently serves as the Executive Board Chairperson for Efficacy Methodology Research Institute, in Kampala Uganda, East Africa, a think tank spanning the continent. She is a member of the American Evaluation Association, the Washington Evaluators, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. Dr. Bledsoe’s work has been published in journals such as Evaluation Matters—He Take Tō Te Aromatawai, the American Journal of Evaluation, New Directions in Evaluation, Families in Society, and in edited volumes such Qualitative Inquiry in the Practice of Evaluation, Continuing the Journey to Reposition Culture and Cultural Context in Evaluation Theory and Practice, and the International Handbook of Urban Education.

Ayesha Boyce (Arizona State University)

Dr. Ayesha Boyce began her research career earning a B.S. in Psychology from Arizona State University, an M.A. in research Psychology from Cal State Long Beach, and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology - program evaluation specialization from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., she was a research associate for the Arizona Department of Education. After earning her Ph.D. she completed a one-year postdoctoral scholar position with the UIUC Illinois STEM Education Initiative. Boyce then joined the University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Department of Educational Research Methodology from 2015-2021 as an assistant professor. Dr. Boyce is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation at Arizona State University. She also co-directs the STEM Program Evaluation Lab. Dr. Boyce’s scholarship focuses on attending to value stances and issues related to diversity, equity, inclusion, access, cultural responsiveness, and social justice within evaluation—especially multi-site, STEM, and contexts with historically marginalized populations. Dr. Boyce also examines teaching, mentoring, and learning in evaluation. She has evaluated over 50 programs funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), US Department of Education, National Institutes of Health, and Spencer and Teagle foundations. She is currently the external evaluator for six NSF funded projects and has been a Co-Principal Investigator on four NSF-funded projects. Dr. Boyce is a 2019 American Evaluation Association Marcia Guttentag Promising New Evaluator Award receipt and a 2019 UNC Greensboro School of Education Distinguished Research Scholar Award recipient. In her teaching and mentorship, Dr. Boyce encourages students to develop a strong methodological foundation, conduct studies based on democratic principles, and promote equity, fairness, inclusivity, and diversity.

Nicole Bowman (Bowman Performance Consulting)

Nicole/ Waapalaneexhweet Bowman Lunaape/Mohican), PhD, is a traditional Ndulunaapeewi Kwe Lunaape Woman) and a traditional community member and citizen of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Nation in Wisconsin, USA (www.mohican.com). She is a curious, creative, and courageous innovator whose academic lodge sits at the place Where traditional knowledge and Tribal sovereignty intersect with evaluation, policy, and research. She is the Founder/President of Bowman Performance Consulting (www.bpcwi.com) and an Associate Scientist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (https://wcer.wisc.edu/About/Staff/3229). Dr. Bowman holds knowledge and experience in multi-jurisdictional and complexity systems (Nation to Nation and culturally responsive and Indigenous research, policy, and evaluation. She is an Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation and co-founder of Roots and Relations, a permanent section in the journal. Dr. Bowman is also the recipient of the American Evaluation Association's 2018 Robert Ingle Service Award (the youngest and first Indigenous awardee) and serves on numerous global evaluation, Indigenous, and educational journal review and advisor boards. Dr. Bowman has served for more than twenty-fire rears in elected leadership position of AEA's Indigenous Peoples in Evaluation Topical Interest Group, and is a Global Advisory Member of EvalIndigenous (2015-present), Blue Marble Evaluation (2018 - present), the Board of the International Evaluation Academr (2021 - present), and AEA's International Work Group (2017-2022). Since 2016, Dr. Bowman has been an Affiliate Faculty Researcher at the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment at the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign and continues to serve at the request of national, international, philanthropic, professional, and Tribal organizations and Tribal/First Nations as a collaborative, passionate, and effective thought partner and community and scholarly contributor.

Martin Brown (Dublin City University/CREA Dublin) ›

Martin Brown is Head of School of Policy and Practice at the Institute of Education, Dublin City University (DCU) and co-director at EQI – The Centre for Evaluation Quality and Inspection, also based at DCU. He is an appointed Expert Evaluator to the European Commission and advisor to the Teaching Council of Ireland. He is the Project coordinator and co-principal investigator for the following national and transnational funded research projects: Supporting Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Leadership in Schools (CRELiS); Inter-Cultural Community Evaluation and Planning (ICCEP); Repurposing Education through Blended Learning (REBEL); Northern Ireland Shaped Professional Learning Network (NISPN); Cultural Responsivity in Teacher Education- Research in Action (CRiTERiA).Research interests include: Accountability and Evaluation in Education; Comparative Education Studies; Leadership; Educational Policy; Professional Learning Networks.

Suzanne Callahan (Callahan Consulting)

Suzanne Callahan founded Callahan Consulting for the Arts in 1996 to help artists, arts organizations, and funders realize their vision through services that include planning, resource development, evaluation, research, and philanthropic counsel. She brings over 30 years’ experience as a national funder, for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Dance/USA, and other organizations. In 2018-2020, the firm led the design and management of Dance/USA Fellowships to Artists, a $1.9 million program that, with the support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, supports individual dance artists who are working to address social change in communities. Her firm has conducted studies for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Chicago Community Trust and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Evaluations conducted by her firm have focused on the creative process and audience engagement, as well as the intersection of arts with social justice, service delivery, education, philanthropy and healthcare. Callahan is an author and frequent lecturer in arts evaluation at national and regional conferences. Her book Singing Our Praises: Case Studies in the Art of Evaluation, published by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, was awarded Outstanding Publication of the Year from the American Evaluation Association (AEA). Her evaluation writings have been published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and the Grantmakers in the Arts Reader, as well as the journals of national arts service organizations. She has instructed for the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, Society for Arts in Healthcare, South Arts, and Arts Midwest. She has been a guest lecturer at numerous universities and an adjunct professor at GWU. She conceived of and produced the Dance/USA book Dance from the Campus to the Real World (and Back Again): A Resource Guide for Artists, Faculty and Students. Both of her books are used as college texts. Callahan has served as panelist or site visitor for numerous foundations and associations and on advisory committees for the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, the Society for Arts in Healthcare and Dance Metro DC. She is a member of the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers, Certified Fund Raisers International, and other organizations in the arts and evaluation fields. At the NEA she received a Distinguished Service Award for her leadership as Chair to the agency's AIDS Working Group and for her efforts to address the issues of AIDS and health insurance for artists. A former dance teacher, Callahan holds an M.A. in Dance Education and a Certificate in Fundraising from George Washington University, where she also studied evaluation and anthropology, and a BA from Northwestern University. She has studied evaluation at numerous organizations and with some of the foremost experts in the field, including Michael Quinn Patton and Richard Krueger, and trained in facilitating communities of practice with Etienne Wenger. Training in racial equity comes from many artists, activists, mentors, and methods, including the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), and Equity Quotient.

Joshua Childs

Joshua Childs is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. His research examines the role of inter-organizational networks and cross-sector collaborations to address complex educational issues. He also investigates collaborative approaches involving organizations (local, state, and national) that have the potential to improve academic achievement and opportunities for students in urban and rural schools. This includes ways to improve student engagement and attendance in school, interscholastic athletics, and expanding educational opportunities through concentrated policy design and implementation. Joshua is a Co-PI of the Expanding Computing Education Pathways Alliance, a consortium of 30 states focused on broadening participation in computer science. A former Division I athlete, Joshua graduated from Plano West High School (TX).

Fiona Cram (Katoa Ltd.)

Fiona (Māori – Ngāti Pāhauwera, Pākehā) has produced one son, as well as a PhD from the University of Otago (Social and Developmental Psychology). She has over 25 years of Kaupapa Māori (by, with and for Māori) research and evaluation experience with Māori and Iwi organisations and communities, as well as with government agencies, district health boards, and philanthropic organisations. A large portion of this work involves the pursuit of decolonisation, Māori sovereignty, and societal transformation. Fiona is passionate about ensuring that evaluation and research with Māori is culturally responsive and supportive of Māori aspirations for health and wellbeing. To this end she has trained Māori community evaluators and built the capacity of Māori organizations to undertake their own evaluations. When she formed her company in 2003, she asked her aunties what she should call it and they said ‘Katoa’ (meaning ‘All’), because she does a little bit of everything. It should be no surprise then that Katoa Ltd works across many fields, including health, social services, corrections, youth justice, and education, and undertakes evaluation and research employing multiple, and often mixed, methods. Evaluations range from impact evaluations using administrative data to local, largely qualitative evaluations where people’s journey stories are prioritized. Fiona is grateful to have many great colleagues to work with, and brilliant staff who share her enthusiasm for Kaupapa Māori research and evaluation. Fiona is currently co-leading the Affordable Homes for Generations research programme with Kay Saville-Smith. Funded by the Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities National Science Challenge this research programme asks after the why, how and why not? of having affordable housing in this country. She is also leading a community housing research programme, Poipoia te kākano, kia puāwai, with Tepora Emery. The goal of this research programme is community implementation, ownership and use of housing research and evaluation. Fiona is Editor-in-Chief of the Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association journal ‘Evaluation Matters – He Take Tō Te Aromatawai’, published by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, and in 2020 she co-authored a Sage volume with Jill Chouinard on culturally responsive approaches to evaluation.

Kathryn Dinh (Lotus Evaluation)

Dr Kathryn Dinh is an Australian-Vietnamese evaluator and researcher in culturally responsive evaluation methods and approaches relevant to South East and East Asia. She is Director of Lotus Evaluation located in Sydney, Australia and has recently completed her PhD research at the University of New South Wales in conjunction with the Institute of Social Development Studies, Hanoi, in three interrelated areas: Adapting evaluation methods to take into account Confucian and Buddhist world views, Developing culturally appropriate guiding principles for HIV policy advocacy evaluation by non-government organisations in Vietnam, and Applying practical approaches to culturally responsive evaluation including the development of context-sensitive methods. Kathryn’s ‘other hat’ is as a consultant in health evaluation for international aid and community programs, an area she has worked in for more than 24 years. She has worked as a Consultant Advisor for the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s (DFAT) Health Security Initiative for the Indo-Pacific Region and its Regional Vaccine Access and Health Security Initiative since 2019, and more recently also for the Quad Vaccine Partnership. She is working with diverse institutional partners on health systems strengthening, evaluation capacity strengthening and the national and regional COVID-19 vaccine response in the Asia Pacific across more than 18 countries. Prior to her work for DFAT, Kathryn worked as a monitoring, evaluation and learning advisor and leader across multi-country, multi-year complex aid and health programs for donor governments, foundations, consortiums, international and national non-government organizations, government departments, private consultancies and academic institutions. Her experience has primarily focused on South East Asia and the Pacific, but Kathryn has also worked in Western Europe, India and the Commonwealth of Independent States. She has a Master of International Public Health and BA (Communication). As a CREA Affiliate, Kathryn is keen to continue to collaborate on her research in South East and East Asia as well as to identify opportunities to expand culturally responsive evaluation approaches in the international development sector. Too often as evaluators we are armed with a toolbox of Western European derived evaluation methods to use in non-Western European contexts. We intuitively know that these methods don’t align with the world views of the community being evaluated, it makes us feel uncomfortable. However, we don’t have the time, resources or sometimes the expertise to develop evaluation methods that are contextually appropriate, often for multiple world views. I am interested in collaborating with evaluation colleagues to both identify existing evaluation methods and approaches Indigenous to South East and East Asia as well as to develop new culturally responsive methods for these regions.

Sylvia Epps (Decision Information Resources, Inc)

Sylvia R. Epps, Ph.D., is the President of Decision Information Resources, Inc. She brings more than 18 years of experience designing and leading multiple large-scale data collection and national evaluation projects all focused on advancing social policies and improving programs for underserved populations and racial minorities. Dr. Epps is currently directing multiple evaluations where Culturally Relevant Evaluation and Assessment (CREA) is at the forefront. Specifically, she is leading: the national evaluation of the Will Keith Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT), a multi-site initiative to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion and racial justice; the national evaluation of the RWJF Building Capacity for Tobacco Control Advocacy Among Populations Most Harmed by Tobacco initiative, a health equity initiative in 7 distinct locales that seeks to empower African Americans and rural communities to advocate for stronger tobacco control policies in 14 targeted states referred to as “Tobacco Nation”; and the evaluation of the George Kaiser Family Foundation’s Birth through Eight Strategy for Tulsa (GKFF-BEST), a longitudinal place-based initiative designed to alter the nurturing context of a distinct community, She is also directing an evaluation of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative, an effort to increase economic and social mobility, and reduce wealth disparities in Black communities. Previously, Dr. Epps served as project director for the TRIO Implementation and Outcomes (TRIO) study, conducted on behalf of ED’s National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, to investigate what implementation strategies were commonly used by Upward Bound projects and how they varied across project characteristics. TRIO programs identify and provide services for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In recognition of her contributions to the industry and her community, Dr. Epps was recently honored by the Houston Business Journal as a “40 Under 40” awardee and selected as an Affiliate Researcher for the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Olatokunbo (Toks) S. Fashola (American University)

Olatokunbo (Toks) S. Fashola (Ph.D.) received her Ph.D. in Educational psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995, and have spent her career as a policy researcher, and a program evaluator. Currently, she holds a Research Professor position American University in Washington, D.C. She serves as the faculty coordinator for the Dual Enrollment program, and the Early Childhood Education accreditation specialist for the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). She is also a Faculty Associate for the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA). Over the years, her research has addressed risk factors, protective factors, buffers, assets and resiliency, with a special emphasis on English Language Learners, African American Males, school reform programs and models, low-income students in grades Pre-PRE-K-12, opportunities beyond the school hours, and early childhood education. She has used rigorous applied research designs and methods such as synthetic analyses and systematic reviews and randomized field trials to analyze and evaluate the effects of programs that are designed to serve as protective factors for students in grades PRE-K-12. She has also participated in additional types of research studies and projects, which have included pilot studies, and evaluations of projects aimed at improving the opportunities of underrepresented minorities, individuals with disabilities, and English language learning. Tok's work over the past thirteen years has addressed the effectiveness of programs for African American males, English Language Learners (ELLS), and low-income students, particularly recipients of Titles I-IV services. Her previous work has also included being the Task Leader for the creation of expert papers for the National Center for Special education Research, exploring topics such as single case studies, Regression Discontinuity Designs (RDDs), Interrupted Time Series, and Randomize Field Trials (RFTs). Some current research manuscripts appear in the Journal of Education of Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), Phi Delta Kappan, Urban Education, and the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ), Peabody Journal of Education, and Journal of Negro Education. Tok's current work addresses equitable college access, and persistence in STEM among traditionally excluded and underrepresented students in IHEs and in STEM. For STEM work, she explores Culturally Responsive research and implementation methods used to broaden access to STEM pipelines. In her Dual Enrollment work, she explores systems in higher education, and how members of this targeted population navigate the systems and how the systems themselves may change in order to provide better post-secondary opportunities and avenues success to students.

Kevin E. Favor (Lincoln University)

Dr. Kevin E. Favor, Professor of Psychology, earned his Ph.D. in Educational/Counseling Psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and A.M. in Clinical/Minority Mental Health from Washington University in St Louis. He is a licensed Psychologist in Maryland and Pennsylvania, specializing in: child and adolescent psychology, assessment and treatment of substance abuse, and program evaluation of HIV/AIDS, violence prevention, and educational programming for underrepresented groups. His background in addiction services includes Level IV Substance Abuse Counselor for Project ADAPT at Liberty Medical Center (and its former designation as Provident Hospital) in Baltimore Maryland, Substance Abuse Specialist and Child and Adolescent Therapist at Johns Hopkins’ East Baltimore Medical Center, and as duties associated with his former role as Lincoln University’s Consulting Psychologist. The training in minority mental health has served to prepare him for advancing culturally-responsive service delivery and scholarship through his teaching, consultations, writing and direct service delivery. Dr. Favor has served as a panel member for the CDC, NSF, and Ford Fellowship Foundation in an effort to promote diversity and social equity within the behavioral science community. He served as chair, and later, co-chair of the Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) Faculty Initiative for broadening inclusion in evaluation for the American Evaluation Association. Currently, he is engaged as an evaluator in collaborations with the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for AIDS Research (PENN-CFAR) on two National Institute of Health (NIH) awards for Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) Program. Additionally, the overarching goal of preparing African American undergraduates for evaluation careers continues through collaborations with majority institutions relative to addictions. Notably, collaborations with the Treatment Research Institute (TRI), Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) have provided avenues for training Lincoln University undergraduates in research and evaluation of interventions and impact of the Opioid Crisis through multiyear funding by Pennsylvania’s Department of Health.

Pamela Frazier-Anderson (Frazier-Anderson Research & Evaluation, LLC) ›

Pamela Frazier-Anderson, PH.D. is the CEO of Kandaki Tech, LLC (KTI). Kandaki Tech is an application and responsive website design company developing and designing products to positively educate and impact marginalized and vulnerable groups in the United States. She is a non-faculty affiliate of the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA) at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). She has also served as Chief Officer of Educational Services and Community Partnerships for KOOLriculum, Inc., an educational technology company. Dr. Frazier-Anderson received her M.Ed. and Ph.D. from Arizona State University in Educational Psychology, with a concentration in School Psychology. She is also a graduate of Spelman College. Her formal training includes the academic, behavioral, and cognitive assessment of children in grades Pre-K through 12, with an emphasis on autism and culturally relevant assessment and teaching practices. Her experience in charter school settings, as well as the development and implementation of educational programs for non-profit and private organizations, have addressed the needs of youth from underserved populations. Dr. Frazier-Anderson has provided program evaluation assistance to private and public organizations in the areas of survey development and implementation, project development/implementation, program management, program evaluation and grant proposal development and writing. Dr. Frazier-Anderson is one of the creators of the ACESAS, which is a method for conducting culturally responsive program evaluations in educational settings. She was first appointed and then elected to serve as Co-Chair of the Research on Evaluation Special Interest Group (RoE SIG) of the American Educational Research Association, and is a former Program Chair for the Multiethnic Issues in Evaluation Topical Interest Group of the American Evaluation Association.

Henry Frierson (University of Florida)

Henry T. Frierson is Professor of Educational Research and Evaluation Methodology in the College of Education at the University of Florida. From 2007 to 2021, he was the Associate Vice President and Dean of the Graduate School and. Prior to the University of Florida, he was a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1996, he began teaching a program evaluation graduate course and taught the course each semester until 2007. During that time, he mentored many students in a number of aspects of program evaluation; a number became professional evaluators and others taught graduate courses in program evaluation. He became a primary proponent of cultural responsiveness in program evaluation and vigorously advocates culturally responsive evaluation approaches in all program evaluation projects and studies. Early on, he has written articles and chapters related to program evaluation. In1994, he and Stafford Hood published the edited volume, Beyond the Dream: Meaningful Program Evaluation and Assessment to Achieve Equal Opportunities for Minorities at Predominantly White Universities. To kick-off the focus on culturally responsive evaluation, 2002, he along with Hood and Gerunda Hughes wrote the chapter, “Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Strategies for Addressing it” in the NSF published The User-Friendly Evaluation Handbook. Three years later, with Hood and Rodney Hopson, he published the edited volume, The Role of Culture and Cultural Context: A Mandate for Inclusion, the Discovery of Truth and Understanding in Evaluative Theory and Practice. Later, the three published the edited volume, Continuing the Journey to Reposition Culture and Cultural Context in Evaluation Theory and Practice, though it is noted that Frierson does not hold to evaluation theories but evaluation approaches. Most recently, he, Hood, Hopson, and Keena Arthbuthnot edited The Importance of Race-Based Culturally Responsive Educational Inquiry in Research, Evaluation and Assessment.

Drew Gitomer (Rutgers University)

Drew Gitomer, the current and inaugural holder of the DeMarzo Chair in Education at Rutgers Graduate School of Education, studies the assessment and evaluation of teaching. His research has examined policy-related issues in teaching and teacher education and considers a range of constructs that are related to teaching quality—teacher knowledge, teacher beliefs, student achievement, and quality of classroom interactions. From work in student performance assessment and portfolios, the scope of Gitomer’s research has focused on the design and validation of assessments that support the improvement of instruction. More recently, he has written several pieces focusing on the disconnect and potential bridges between traditional psychometric and social justice perspectives on fairness and assessment. Gitomer has also been focusing on research methods used to study the use of research evidence (URE). That work has led to the development of the URE Methods Repository housed in a Collection in the Open Science Framework. Prior to joining Rutgers GSE, Gitomer was a distinguished researcher and Senior Vice-President of Research and Development at Educational Testing Service, where he led the Understanding Teaching Quality Center. He has contributed to the dialogue on teacher evaluation research and practice across the country. Gitomer has written and edited several highly regarded publications, including the AERA Handbook of Research on Teaching (5th edition) and, most recently, a William T. Grant Foundation monograph entitled, Studying the Use of Research Evidence: A Review of Methods.

Leslie Goodyear (Education Development Center)

Leslie Goodyear, PhD, has over 20 years of experience evaluating educational projects and programs at local, regional, national, and international levels. She has conducted evaluations and evaluation capacity building in formal and informal educational settings, afterschool, youth civic engagement, HIV prevention, youth development, and human services programs, with a recent focus on STEM educational programs in informal settings. As Distinguished Scholar/Principal Evaluation Director at EDC, she is the lead author on a Wallace Foundation-funded report on ensuring quality in summer learning, has led a multi-year evaluation of the NSF Broadening Participation in Computing–Alliances Program, the Statewide Evaluation of the Illinois 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program, and evaluation of an equity initiative in the Omaha Public School District, and led an evaluation and learning partnership focused on advancing racial equity in Chicago. From 2009 to 2012, she took a leave from EDC to serve as a Program Officer at the National Science Foundation, where she administered grants in the programs of the Division of Research on Learning, including ITEST, Informal Science Education, Promoting Research and Innovation in Methodologies for Evaluation, and CAREER; supervised evaluation and research contracts; and developed directorate and division level evaluation policy. All the projects and programs that Leslie evaluates are focused on racial equity, DEIA, and broadening participation of underrepresented groups, whether that be through exciting, hands-on STEM experiences; safe, stimulating afterschool learning spaces; or new approaches to recruiting and retaining women, people of color and people with disabilities in computer science. Dr. Goodyear is invested in ensuring that evaluation approaches and techniques are responsive to the culture and context of programs and they people they serve. Goodyear has been the Associate Editor of the American Journal of Evaluation; lead editor of Qualitative Inquiry in Evaluation: From Theory to Practice (2014); author of the chapter “Building a Community of Evaluation Practice Within a Multisite Program;” editor of a special issue on ethics in evaluation in Evaluation and Program Planning; and coauthor of “The Role of Culture and Cultural Context in Evaluation,” among other publications. Leslie received a Masters and PhD in program evaluation from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science from Macalester College.

Andrea Guerrero-Guajardo (Bexar County Public Health)

Dr. Andrea Guerrero- Guajardo is an independent evaluation consultant and has worked in hospital administration and higher education with particular expertise in the areas of organizational leadership, strategic planning, and nonprofit operations. Her research approach is firmly entrenched in the principles of community organizing and participatory decision making with the goal of developing local capacity and increasing access to health and other services for uninsured adults and children and particularly in among Latino communities. Her community-based work is focused on social determinants of health and community responsive evaluation that addresses disparities caused by social, political, and economic inequities within historically oppressed and marginalized populations. Dr. Guerrero-Guajardo has worked with stakeholders at the local, state, and national levels to develop prudent public policy, as well as promote population health and community wellness, especially among marginalized and oppressed populations. She is an experienced trainer in these topics and was recognized by the Obama White House for her expertise and contributions to best practices for coalition building and community collaboration. Dr. Guerrero-Guajardo holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, a Master of Public Health from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and a PhD in Education from the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio.

Jori Hall (University of Illinois Chicago)

Jori N. Hall, President's Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, is an award-winning author and multidisciplinary researcher. Hall's research is concerned with social inequalities and enhancing the robustness of social science research methodologies. Her scholarly pursuits address issues of research methodology, cultural responsiveness, and the nuanced interplay of values and privilege across evaluation, education, and health domains. Hall has published numerous peer-reviewed works in scholarly venues. She is also the author of the acclaimed book "Focus Groups: Culturally Responsive Approaches for Qualitative Inquiry and Program Evaluation." Notably, she was honored as a Leaders of Equitable Evaluation and Diversity (LEEAD) fellow by The Annie E. Casey Foundation. In recognition of her scholarly contributions, Hall received the American Evaluation Association’s Multiethnic Issues in Evaluation Topical Interest Group Scholarly Leader Award. She currently serves as a researcher for programs funded by the Spencer Foundation. She was also the Co-Editor-in-Chief for the American Journal of Evaluation.

Melvin Hall (Northern Arizona University)

Professor Emeritus of Educational Psychology at Northern Arizona University. During a forty plus-year professional career in higher education, Dr. Hall has served in four successive appointments, as an academic dean, comprised of positions at Florida Atlantic University, University of California-Irvine, University of Maryland at College Park, and most recently Northern Arizona University (NAU). At NAU, Dr. Hall served as Dean of the College of Education and additionally was the principal investigator on two five-year US Office of Education GEAR UP grants providing dropout prevention programs and services to thousands of middle and high school students throughout Arizona. Returning to full-time faculty life at NAU in 2002, Dr. Hall melded teaching and scholarship in Educational Psychology with responsibility as co-principal investigator on five-years of National Science Foundation support for the Relevance of Culture in Evaluation Institute. Growing out of the RCEI grant, Dr. Hall began a continuing appointment as a founding affiliated faculty in the Center for Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA) at the University of Illinois. As an external reviewer, Dr. Hall has served on numerous review panels and Committee of Visitors for the National Science Foundation EHR Division including an invited expert panel on the future of evaluation methodology in STEM programs. In 2015, he accepted a one-year appointment as an intermittent expert at NSF and in that, capacity served as a program officer for the ADVANCE and HBCU UP Programs within the Human Resource Development Division of the EHR Directorate. From 2017 to 2020 he served as director of strategic initiatives within the NSF-funded Center for the Advancement of STEM Leadership (CASL). CASL is the first of its kind research center devoted to enhancing the role of the nation’s HBCUs as they provide critical research contributions to support the broadening participation in STEM efforts of NSF. In August 2020 Dr. Hall formally retired from his faculty position at NAU. Despite his retirement he continues to hold appointments as a Senior Scholar at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (where he also serves as a member of the Inclusive Excellence Commission) and a Distinguished Scholar, in the Marie Fielder Center of Fielding Graduate University

3FE335CE-786D-46AF-8E4F-28C9773917A4_4_5005_c

Tracy Hilliard (Lift Every Voice Evaluation, Research & Strategy)

Tracy M. Hilliard, PhD, MPH (she/her) is Co-Executive Director & Co-Founder for Lift Every Voice Evaluation, Research & Strategy. In this role, she directs culturally responsive engagement to dismantle racial inequities and other forms of oppression through organizational development, strategic planning, training, facilitation, measurement, learning, and evaluation. Dr. Hilliard is a graduate of the inaugural cohort of Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity (LEEAD) program designed to produce PhD-trained evaluators committed to advancing equity and social justice. She has led racial equity‐focused projects with philanthropy, government, academia, non-profits, and corporate partners. Her clients have included W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Kansas Health Foundation, Seattle Foundation, Public Health Seattle & King County (PHSKC), University of Washington (UW) School of Public Health, and the City of Seattle. As an executive at Seattle Human Services Department, she led the implementation of a new data‐driven strategic plan to address racial inequities through the provision of public health and social services. Dr. Hilliard was previously principal investigator in the Assessment, Policy Development, and Evaluation unit at PHSKC. Her work as a workforce and Public Health Systems and Services Research (PHSSR) consultant to Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) set the national agenda for PHSSR at RWJF and CDC, and was published in a special supplement of American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Over the past two decades her areas of focus have included culturally responsive, community-based research and evaluation methods; racial equity and racial healing; data-driven strategic planning; community engagement; systems transformation; practice-based research; mixed methods; and data visualization. Her topical areas have included health equity, homelessness and housing, leadership development, workforce, employment, youth development, juvenile justice, reentry, education, maternal and child health, health promotion and chronic disease prevention, and cancer prevention and control. Dr. Hilliard is committed to mentoring and training historically underrepresented scholars and professionals in culturally responsive, research and evaluation methods. She has a faculty appointment in the University of Washington (UW) Department of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing. She earned a BA with Distinction in sociology, an MPH in maternal and child health, and a PhD in health services research all from UW.

Rodney Hopson (American University)

Rodney Hopson, PhD serves as Professor of Evaluation in the Department of Educational Psychology, College of Education, with appointments in the Department of Educational Policy and Organizational Leadership and the Center of African Studies at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, where he has been since 2018-2019 as part of the inaugural University of Illinois System Distinguished Faculty Recruitment Program. He received his doctorate from the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, with major concentrations in educational evaluation, anthropology, and policy, and sociolinguistics. He was awarded a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH) postdoctoral fellowship at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. Hopson is an American Educational Research Association (AERA) Fellow, and has affiliated previously in the Faculty of Education, University of Namibia as a Fulbright Scholar and the Centre of African Studies, Cambridge University (UK). Currently he is affiliated with the School of Health, Victoria University-Wellington (Aotearoa New Zealand), is Editor of the Studies in Educational Ethnography Book Series, Emerald Publishers, and Co-Editor of Educational Policy as/in Practice: Critical Cultural Studies, Information Age Book Series. Hopson’s cumulative work is driven by quests to: a) understand the role of language as a harbinger of social and educational change, especially in post-apartheid and postcolonial nation states that wrestle with the tensions and opportunities of democracy and freedom; and b), emphasize the transformative possibility of developing mechanisms that promote educational and social equity through the development of communities of practice in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ways to broaden participation, inclusion, and diversity for those often forgotten and underserved in schools, community, social systems, and the larger society.

Emi Iwatani (Digital Promise)

Emi Iwatani, Ph.D. (she/her) is a Senior Learning Sciences Researcher at Digital Promise, a global education non-profit that shapes the future of learning and advances equitable education systems by bringing together solutions across research, practice, and technology. A former high school science teacher and youth advocate in Boston and Pittsburgh, Dr. Iwatani leads educational design research by applying and improving upon culturally responsive research, evaluation and assessment methods. Her recent projects partner with educators to design heritage-resonant computational thinking pathways in Kentucky Appalachia, deepen discussions in high school world history, and reimagine assessment in schools. Her culturally responsive computational thinking education work alone has produced a wide range of publications and products (bit.ly/TANrefs), with many authored by and/or for people in Eastern Kentucky. Dr. Iwatani is past-chair of AERA Division D’s (Measurement and Research Methodologies) Equity and Inclusion Committee (2020-21) and Mentoring Committee (2023-24). She holds a Ph.D. in Education Research Methodology and an M.A. in History and Philosophy of Science, both from the University of Pittsburgh, an M.A. in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.Ed. in Science Education from Wake Forest University, and a Sc.B. in Biology from Brown University.

Chandria Jones (University of Chicago)

Chandria D. Jones, PhD, MPH (she/her) is a Principal Research Scientist in Public Health and Affiliate Staff in the Center on Equity Research at NORC at the University of Chicago. Dr. Jones works in the areas of behavioral health, health equity, and health communications. She leads equity-focused projects that leverage community engagement and participatory methods with an emphasis on culturally responsive and equitable evaluation and research. Her research examines social and environmental determinants of health for historically disadvantaged populations such as people from racial and ethnic minority groups, youth and families with lower incomes, and persons with mental health and substance use challenges. Dr. Jones’ work has a strong racial equity and systems change focus emphasizing the need to understand the complex social, cultural, and historical factors necessary to transform policies and practices. Dr. Jones is an editor of the book, Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation: Visions and Voices of Emerging Scholars. The book spotlights the scholarly, philosophical, and best practices of emerging Black, Latino/x, Indigenous, and other scholars and practitioners from historically marginalized populations in support of culturally responsive and equitable evaluation. Her commitment to tackling social, cultural, and historical nuances that underpin policy and practice transformation is demonstrated by being an alumnus of Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity (LEEAD) scholars program and a member of the Advancing Culturally responsive and Equitable (ACE) Evaluation Network. Dr. Jones earned her Ph.D. in Behavioral and Community Health from the University of Maryland, College Park, and M.P.H. from Florida International University.

Karen Kirkhart (Syracuse University)

Karen E. Kirkhart holds a Ph.D. in Social Work and Psychology from The University of Michigan and is currently Professor Emerita, School of Social Work, David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, Syracuse University. She served as President of the American Evaluation Association in 1994 and has held several leadership positions in that organization. Dr. Kirkhart’s work on multicultural validity seeks to bring issues of culture competence to the center of the evaluation profession by placing them squarely in the middle of validity theory. Her work on evaluation influence recasts evaluation use more broadly in terms of both scope, intention, and location, and calls for closer examination of the consequences of evaluators’ work. Dr. Kirkhart’s contributions to the evaluation profession have been recognized by the American Evaluation Association (AEA) with the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award for Outstanding Contribution to Evaluation Theory and the Robert Ingle Award for Outstanding Services to the AEA. She collaborated with the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) in their development of an Indigenous Evaluation Framework and was a member of the writing team for the AEA Public Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation. She has long partnered with Rodney Hopson to present workshops on Foundations of Culturally Responsive Evaluation at CREA conferences as well as at AEA conferences and the AEA/CDC Summer Institute. Recent publications include a chapter on culturally responsive evaluation: Theory, practice and future implications, coauthored with Stafford Hood and Rodney K. Hopson, in the 4th edition of Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation (Newcomer, Hatry, & Wholey, 2015), a chapter on Equity, privilege, and validity in Evaluation for an Equitable Society (Donaldson & Piccioto, 2016) and a 2021 co-authored article (with Nadaya A. Brantley and Gabrielle D. Nicolini) in Journal of Human Rights and Social Work on Unsettling human rights history in social work education: Seeing intersectionality. A co-authored article with Joan LaFrance on Influence and Indigenous evaluation is forthcoming.

Michelle Knight-Manuel (Teachers College, Columbia University)

Michelle Knight-Manuel is a Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University and executive editor of Teachers College Record. Previously, she served as an Associate Dean and Senior Advisor to the Provost/Dean at Teachers College, Columbia University. Earlier in her career she was a former middle school ESL/French teacher and college advisor in Oakland, California. Her scholarly work includes three distinct yet complementary strands of inquiry: college readiness and access, immigrant youth’s civic strengths, and culturally relevant teacher preparation. She has published in such journals as the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, Race, Ethnicity and Education, Review of Research in Education, and the Journal of Educational Policy. Her two books, co-authored with Joanne Marciano, are Classroom Cultures: Equitable Schooling for Racially Diverse Youth and College Ready: Preparing Black and Latino Youth for Higher Education through a Culturally Relevant Lens. Dr. Knight-Manuel is committed to engaged scholarship and partners with varying educational entities to develop and maintain culturally inclusive, equitable and just learning environments. She is the recipient of several honors and awards, including the AERA Research on Women in Education Willystine Goodsell Award and a Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. Michelle Knight-Manuel has also served as the Director of Culturally Relevant College and Career Readiness for the New York City Department of Education’s Expanded Success Initiative and as a Senior Research Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Career and College Readiness at Boston University.

Joan LaFrance (Mekinak Consulting)

Joan LaFrance, Ed.D., is owner of Mekinak Consulting, a management and evaluation service in Seattle, Washington specializing in educational program evaluation, research, and management studies. She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. Joan received her doctorate Harvard University, and a Master’s of Public Administration from the University of Washington. Mekinak Consulting has a long history of evaluation of programs in Tribal Colleges and Universities, tribal and indigenous communities, and for non-profit organizations. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through a grant to the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), she conducted the research and co-authored the book Indigenous Evaluation Framework: Telling Our Story in Our Place and Time. Currently, she is conducting research on the application of the Indigenous Evaluation Framework in three tribal college communities. She was a founding member of the Indigenous Peoples in Evaluation TIG in AEA, and believes that traditional Indigenous voices and values will make significant contributions to evaluation theory and practice. In addition to her ongoing work in American Indian tribal communities, she is working projects in the United States Affiliated Pacific Islands to assess culturally relevant mathematics curriculum and climate change education projects. She was the lead evaluator for CEMELA, a NSF funded four university consortium dedicated to research in mathematics learning among Latino populations. Joan has taught research and evaluation methods in graduate programs for the University of Washington, Western Washington University, The Evergreen State College, and Lesley University. She has done municipal budgeting, program development and management, and curriculum development. She has also worked as an internal consultant in the City of Seattle’s Performance Resource Group where she was involved in government improvement efforts such as performance measures, surveys of city residents and businesses, organizational research and organizational development.

Jacqueline Leonard (University of Wyoming)

Jacqueline Leonard, PhD, is an associate for MERAsocciates (MERA), LLC, an education research and evaluation consultancy based in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. At MERA, Dr. Leonard has worked on a number of university-related evaluation projects that focus on broadening STEM participation. Dr. Leonard is also Professor Emeritus at the University of Wyoming where she served as professor of mathematics education (2016-2021) and director of the Science and Mathematics Teaching Center (2012-2016). Under her leadership, the University of Wyoming was awarded $5.2 million for five projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation that supported culturally responsive pedagogy for teachers and the development of computational thinking among underrepresented students in K-12 and afterschool settings. Dr. Leonard also worked as Associate Dean of the School of Education and Human Development (2010) and professor (2011-2012) at the University of Colorado Denver. She began her academic career at Temple University (1997-2010) after working as a teacher of mathematics for Prince George’s County Public Schools (1994-1997), Dallas Independent School District (1984-1993), and University City Schools in Missouri (1981-1983). Dr. Leonard is an affiliate member of the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA) located in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She regularly presents at national conferences, such as the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Psychology of Mathematics Education North America (PMENA). Moreover, she has authored five books, 14 book chapters, and 50 journal articles. Her most recent publication, supported by the National Science Foundation, is a book released by Routledge in July 2022 entitled, Fostering Computational Thinking Among Underrepresented Students in STEM: Strategies for Supporting Racially Equitable Computing.

Monique Liston (UBUNTU Research & Evaluation)

dr. monique liston is a forward-thinking collaborator, skilled facilitator, insightful evaluator, and courageous leader dedicated to embedding Afrofuturistic principles into her work. As the founder, Chief Strategist and Joyful Militant of UBUNTU Research & Evaluation, she channels her commitment to liberation and justice into transformative practices for teams, organizations, and communties. In addition to her role at UBUNTU, dr. liston is the founder and executive director of THE LEADERSHIP UNDERCOMMONS, a Black-led communiversity that provides educational opportunities for those committed to dismantling systemic oppression and nurturing collective liberation. Through education, advocacy, and community building, the organization fosters a world where Black communities, and all marginalized individuals, are empowered to lead lives free from discrimination and harm. With a deep conviction that the futures of Black people are central to social justice, dr. liston advocates for emergence and abolition of pathways to liberatory practices. She leads a team of independent researchers and evaluators who have secured substantial contracts, delivered impactful presentations and global conferences, and contributed meaningfully to the literature in evaluation, higher education, and Black Studies. Under her leadership, UBUNTU Research and Evaluation has been recognized with multiple nominations for the Shepherd Express's Best Place to Work for Social Justice. Her pioneering work has earned her numerous accolades, including the Milwaukee Business Journal's Diversity in Business Community Engagement Award, the Campaign for Black Male Achievement Respect Award, and the YWCA of Southeastern Wisconsin Eliminating Racism Award. dr. liston's academic background is distinguished, with degrees from Howard University, the University of Delaware, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, along with a Graduate Certificate in Women's and Gender Studies. Her work dismantles white supremacist structures while strengthening Black-led organizations and communities, using Afrofuturism to center humanity and dignity in her evaluation process. Outside of her professional life, dr. liston enjoys traveling, exploring diverse cuisines, creating with Legos, and indulging in animated television. Her work is visionary, filled with intellectual rigor, and a joyful appreciation for life's colorful experiences.

Laura Pan Luo (China Agriculture University)

Ms. Laura Pan Luo is Professor in the College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agriculture University (CAU). She teaches Evaluation, English Communication, and Chinese Culture and Society. Prior to joining the CAU in 2004, Ms. Luo worked for the World Bank, the U.S. Government Accountability Offic and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Having conducted evaluation both in the East and West, Ms. Luo’s research focuses on the role of culture in evaluation, culturally responsive approaches in development evaluation and the importance of connecting to one’s roots in evaluation. Ms. Luo holds a Ph.D. and a M.Ed. in Program Evaluation from University of Virginia, and a B.A. in English Language and Literature from Peking University. She serves as an Interim Board Member of the Asia-Pacific Evaluation Association.

Donna Mertens (Transformative Research and Evaluation)

Donna M. Mertens, PhD, is Professor Emeritus; she taught research and evaluation at Gallaudet University for 31 years; she is a past president of the American Evaluation Association and served as the editor for the Journal for Mixed Methods Research for five years. She conducts and consults on evaluations in many countries, for example,reduction of gender based violence in Kyrgyzstan, environmental justice in Korea for Yonsei University, Kazakhstan for UN Women, Nepal and India for the World Bank and the Canadian International Development Agency, Sri Lanka for the Sri Lanka Evaluation Association, Australia for the Aboriginal Health Education and Research Unit, and Egypt for Higher Education Development. The primary focus of her work is transformative mixed-methods inquiry in diverse communities that prioritizes ethical implications of research and evaluation in support of human rights and social justice. Her recent books include Mixed Methods Design in Evaluation, Program Evaluation Theory and Practice: A Comprehensive Guide (2nd ed.) (authored with Amy Wilson), Transformative Research and Evaluation, The Handbook of Social Research Ethics, Research and Evaluation in Education, Psychology: Integrating Diversity with Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods (5th ed.), and Indigenous Pathways into Social Research (co-edited with Fiona Cram and Bagele Chilisa).

Dominica McBride (BECOME, Inc)

Dr. Dominica McBride, a leading thinker on how we evolve beyond the current racial-equity paradigm, a champion of Culturally Responsive Evaluation, and a grassroots advocacy strategist. Dr. McBride founded BECOME in 2013 from a belief that communities should be at the center of creating the reality they want and need and that culturally responsive evaluation can be a tool for social justice and thriving communities. Previously she conducted program development and evaluation projects in Arizona, the Chicago area and in Tanzania, Africa. Dr. McBride has worked as a consultant, program director and adjunct faculty member in the field of community psychology and has provided adult, child and family therapy as well as substance abuse counseling. She is a sought-after speaker and trainer for communities, coalitions, and organizations nationally. Her published articles and chapters discuss including culturally responsive evaluation, cultural competence, and prevention and other topics. Her current evaluation and research focus are around community transformation and movement building.

Monica B. Mitchell (MERAssociates, LLC)

Monica B. Mitchell is Founder and President of MERAssociates (MERA), LLC, an award-winning education research and evaluation consultancy based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Dr. Mitchell specializes in STEM broadening participation throughout the educational and professional continuum with extensive experience in underserved and racially minoritzed communities. MERA was originally launched in response to the pressing need of coupling cultural responsiveness with content expertise in the conduct of evaluation focused on broadening STEM participation. A core commitment of MERA is to advance inclusiveness of underrepresented principal investigators and institutions of higher education in programs funded by federal agencies. Since its 2008 inception, MERA assistance has led to approximately $50 million in grants to support this aim. Before launching MERA, Dr. Mitchell was Associate at the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network where she designed professional development and technical assistance to Minority-serving institutions (MSIs), primarily HBCUs and Tribal Colleges and Universities, in program evaluation, program development, and education research. She has also served as a program officer (rotator) at the National Science Foundation in the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) and the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE). She stays active in designing and providing professional development to increase the competitiveness of PIs and institutions underrepresented in federally funded programs. Along with colleagues, Dr. Mitchell recently released a book on Fostering Computational Thinking among Underrepresented Students in which a chapter on program evaluation in STEM broadening participation is featured.

Sharon Nelson-Barber (WestEd Center for the Study of Culture and Language in Education)

Sharon Nelson-Barber, a sociolinguist, directs Culture and Language in STEM Education in WestEd’s Science and Engineering Program. Dr. Nelson-Barber’s research centers on understanding how the sociocultural contexts in which students live influence the ways in which they make sense of schooling in mathematics and science. Working side by side with other Indigenous researchers whose communities span the lower 48 US states, Alaska, Micronesia, and many areas of Polynesia, she also explores how aspects of cultural knowledge can become visible in assessment and evaluation to ensure that schooling is equitable for all students. She is co-founder of POLARIS—Pacific/Polar Opportunities to Learn, Advance and Research Indigenous Systems—a research and development network that supports healthy communities by integrating Indigenous perspectives with new frontiers of knowledge that strengthen educational transformation. An ongoing project convenes Indigenous elders and scientists to document technical solutions to climate change from both Indigenous and western academic perspectives, and heighten international attention to the need to preserve cultures and societies amidst rising waters and melting ice. This, together with her collaborations with national Native organizations, helps WestEd maintain important community connections and keeps WestEd’s work timely and relevant to partner populations. Nelson-Barber has published extensively, most recently as editor and contributor to the two-volume compendium, Indigenous STEM Education: Perspectives from the Pacific Islands, the Americas, and Asia, available in 2022. She also has a chapter in the 2022 Handbook of Multicultural Science Education and wrote the prologue to the 2020 book, Living Culturally Responsive Mathematics Education with/in Indigenous Communities. Recent chapters and articles appear in the Handbook of Indigenous Education, the International Review of Education, Contemporary Educational Psychology, and the Journal of Indian Education. Nelson-Barber serves on a number of national advisory boards on STEM, language, and education. Prior to coming to WestEd, she taught in the Anthropology Department at Stanford University and later in Stanford’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. She has received two WestEd awards: the Paul D. Hood Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Profession and the Ed Myers Award for Exceptional Contribution to the WestEd Community. The American Educational Research Association recognized her both as a Distinguished Scholar and as a Distinguished Contributor to Research in Indigenous Education. Nelson-Barber earned a doctorate in human development from Harvard University and completed postdoctoral work at Stanford University as a Spencer Fellow.

Leah C. Neubauer (Northwestern University) ›

Dr. Leah C. Neubauer is an Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. She is Affiliated Faculty with the Center for Global Health and the Program of African Studies (PAS) and Ad-Hoc Faculty in The Graduate School. She serves as Director of Accreditation for the Program in Public Health (PHP), and Co-Director of the MPH Degree Global Health concentration and Accelerated Public Health Program (APHP). Her primary area of scholarship is curriculum development and training in the public health and health-related professions. She conducts collaborative global mixed-methods research focused on the development, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of school-based sexual and reproductive health programs. In addition, her work employs multidisciplinary, theory-driven approaches to accreditation, teaching, training, and evaluation capacity-building within varied settings. She teaches graduate-level courses in global health, public health and evaluation.

Joe O’Hara (Dublin City University/CREA Dublin)

Joe O'Hara is Professor of Education and is a member of the School of Policy and Practice in the DCU Institute of Education. He is a Co-Director of EQI- The Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection which hosts CREA Dublin. In partnership with Prof Stafford Hood, Prof Gerry McNamara and Dr Martin Brown , Joe arranged the signing of a formal Memorandum of Understanding between Dublin City University and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign that saw the establishment of CREA Dublin in 2011. Joe O’Hara trained as a teacher and was Director of Teacher Education at the Wadzanai Education Centre, Harare, Zimbabwe from 1990-1994. He joined DCU in 1996 and over the past 26 years has been central the development of research and practice in the field of educational studies in the University culminating in the establishment of the DCU Institute of Education, Ireland’s first Faculty of Education in 2016. Joe O'Hara is a Past President of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland and was a member of the The Teaching Council of Ireland, the national regulatory body for the teaching profession from 2012-2016. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Personal Services Overseas (APSO) / Irish Aid from 2002-2004 and represented Ireland on the Council of the European Educational Research Association from 2008 to 2013. Joe O'Hara was Head of the School of Education Studies, DCU from 2010 to 2016. He is a Director and Founding Member of the Irish Evaluation Network and is a member of the Board of the Centre for Talented Youth, Ireland. Joe O'Hara has been President of the European Educational Research Association since 2018.

Leah Peoples (Transformative Research)

Leah Q. Peoples, Ph.D. (she/her) is an independent researcher, evaluator, and consultant who uses transformative and critical approaches to inform her work building and nurturing equity in educational spaces. Her interests encompass three broad areas: building equity in schools, developing equitable measures for research and evaluation, and culturally responsive evaluation. Dr. Peoples utilizes a diverse repertoire of quantitative and qualitative skills that best addresses research and evaluation questions in ways that honor, respect, and dignify stakeholders, while creating meaningful and useful knowledge. Over the years, she has worked with countless schools, districts, and educators committed to equity; led community-based research and evaluation projects, and collaborated with youth and families. Dr. Peoples has expertise in applying research to practice, facilitating workshops, evaluating programs and curriculum, and conducting research that empowers organizations to make meaningful changes and progress towards equity.

Gregory Phillips II (Northwestern University) ›

Gregory Phillips II, M.S., Ph.D., (he/him) is an assistant professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, where he directs the research program in Evaluation, Data Integration, and Technical Assistance (EDIT) within the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing. His research bridges local evaluation and national surveillance activities to improve health outcomes among sexual and gender minority populations in Chicago and Beyond. He is trained as an HIV epidemiologist with particular experience regarding the social-, sexual-, and network-level factors that drive the HIV epidemic among men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women (TW), particularly among young MSM and TW and Black MSM and TW. He received his doctorate in Epidemiology from The George Washington University in 2012, and has spent the last decade working on HRSA-, CDC-, and NIH-funded projects focused on identifying behaviors associated with HIV infection and effective interventions to halt the spread of HIV among affected populations. His current evaluation work is focused on addressing the ethical and methodological barriers to cultural responsiveness with the sexual and gender minority community. In addition, he is PI of the Center for the Evaluation of HIV Prevention Programs in Chicago, a Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH)-funded project currently focused on evaluating the development and implementation of high-impact structural interventions to address the HIV epidemic among marginalized populations. He has previously led the evaluation of 20 evidence-based and innovative HIV prevention interventions implemented in Chicago community agencies, and contributes strategic planning and evaluation guidance for health departments, community agencies, and health centers on an ongoing basis. He and his team provide yearly pro-bono evaluation services to agencies serving the LGBTQ+ community via the EDIT CARES (Community Award for Research and Evaluation Services) program.

Aileen Reid (University of North Carolina Greensboro)

Dr. Aileen Reid is an Assistant Professor of Educational Research Methodology in the Information, Library and Research Sciences department and a Senior Fellow in the Office of Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Services (OAERS) at UNC Greensboro. Dr. Reid has expertise in culturally responsive, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and mixed methods research and evaluation, educational measurement and assessment, and organizational change. Dr. Reid directs the STEM Program Evaluation Lab (SPEL) which provides training in research and evaluation for graduate and undergraduate students on STEM education projects. Dr. Reid is currently the external evaluator for six National Science Foundation (NSF) fund the principal/co-principal/co-investigator on 4 grants funded by NSF and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Reid’s research applies culturally responsive frameworks to evaluation and measurement to shape educational research and policy and respond to societal challenges. This work is centered on social justice, access, diversity, equity, and inclusion and challenges researchers and practitioners to look at our own cultural location as well as key dimensions of practice to incite change (e.g., context, relationships, validity, methodology, and design). Within this line of inquiry, Dr. Reid investigates inequities in outcomes among underrepresented and minoritized groups, specifically how the intersection of identities and practice impact engagement and responsiveness to varying contexts and cultures. She also investigates values-engaged teaching, learning, and mentorship in research and evaluation. Dr. Reid presents and publishes her work in program evaluation, education, and the STEM disciplines. Dr. Reid is the 2020 UNC Greensboro Thomas Undergraduate Research Mentor Award recipient. Dr. Reid holds a B.A. in Public Policy Studies from Duke University, Master of Public Administration from New York University, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation from UNC Greensboro.

Grisel Robles-Schrader (Northwestern University)

Grisel is the Community Engagement Director at the Program in Public Health (PPH), within the Center for Education in Health Sciences, Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM) at Northwestern University. She is a lecturer in the Department of Preventive Medicine and an affiliate member of the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA) of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She directs the Applied Practice Experience (APEx) Program within the Master of Public Health Program. She co-leads the Community Engagement Committee, a coalition of public health organizations throughout the Chicagoland area that offer guidance on the direction of the APEx and MPH curriculum. She directs the Community Scholars Program, low-cost public health education for community partners. Prior to this role, Grisel worked with Center for Community Health (CCH), within Northwestern University’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS). As the director of the Stakeholder-Academic Research Panel (ShARPs) Program, her team organized dialogues between research teams and community stakeholders aimed at improving research and increasing community-academic partnerships. As an evaluator, she led the development of a comprehensive evaluation infrastructure for CCH’s community engagement services. Grisel has over 20 years of experience in community engagement in public health research and evaluation. Her expertise is in culturally and linguistically responsive approaches in public health education, research, and evaluation practices. Her background is in HIV/AIDS, adolescent reproductive justice issues, community mobilization, structural interventions, translational research, and health disparities, with a special emphasis on Latinx communities and urban areas. Grisel is bicultural and bilingual (English/Spanish), born and raised in Chicago with strong ties to her family in Puerto Rico. She holds a Master in Public Administration from DePaul University. She is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Community Psychology at National Louis University and is a CLAVE Doctoral Fellow.

Eva Sarr (Centre for Multicultural Program Evaluation)

Eva is an indigenous Serer woman from Sene-Gambia, in West Africa. She is also a 6th generation Australian woman of indigenous Celtic—Scottish and Irish—descent. Her father was Muslim and her mother, Catholic. She was raised in Global South nations in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific by her mother, who worked as a Peace Corps Medical Officer. Eva is a mixed methods evaluator with 15 years of experience. She has worked internationally, with First Nations Australians and with Australia’s State and Federal governments and the not-for-profit sector in Australia, as an external evaluator, senior internal evaluator and project manager across the health, education, employment, arts, and community development sectors. Eva is the founding chair of the Australian Evaluation Society’s first Multicultural Evaluation Special Interest Group. She is also the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Multicultural Program Evaluation (CMPE). Established in 2020, the CMPE is among a few organisations in Australasia and the Global South focusing on culturally responsive, equitable, participatory, and collaborative evaluation approaches with multicultural and multifaith communities. It collaborates with affiliates both locally and internationally who have expertise in social accountability, civic participation, and culturally responsive and equitable evaluation.

Katherine Tibbets, (Lili'uokalani Trust/CREA Hawaiʻi) ›

I believe it is the responsibility of evaluation and evaluators [particularly myself] to continuously engage in self-reflection about our professional values and how they are expressed in our decisions and actions. In this moment and place, we have an opportunity and obligation to critically examine the breadth of what evaluation is and can be as we seek to understand and support diversity among evaluators, practice arenas, and those whom evaluation serves. My work is based in Hawaiʻi in Native Hawaiian serving organizations. As a result, I have been deeply invested in understanding how culture affects or should affect our practice as evaluators and the role of evaluators in promotion of social justice and equity. Recent work products I am particularly proud to be associated with include Kūkulu Kumuhana—a wellbeing framework grounded in a Native Hawaiian worldview, the Evaluation with Aloha—offered as a fraamework for reflection on evaluation practice in Native Hawaiian and, to the extent appropriate, other Indigenous and minority contexts, and the Indigenous Evaluation volume in the New Directions for Evaluation series. My favorite current research and evaluation projects are those we are doing in collaboration with other Native Hawaiian serving organizations using the Kūkulu Kumuhana framework to advance wellbeing in our communities. In addition to my work in evaluation, I have subject matter expertise in educational psychology and social work. I am also proud to have been an CREA affiliate since its inception in 2011, an active member of the CREA-Hawaiʻi affiliate since that group first came together in 2015, an AEA member for 22 years, a founding member of the Hawaiʻi-Pacific Evaluation Association and the AEA Indigenous Peoples in Evalaution TIG. Currently, I am serving as a member-at-large on the AEA board (term from 2022-2024).

Caroline Turner (California State University-Sacramento)

Caroline S. Turner is Professor and Graduate Coordinator for the Doctorate in Educational Leadership Program at California State University, Sacramento. Previously, she served as Lincoln Professor of Ethics and Education at Arizona State University (ASU) where she founded and directed graduate programs in Higher & Postsecondary Education. Prior to her appointment at ASU, she served as a Professor of Educational Policy & Administration at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities where she was appointed as Research Coordinator of Faculty Development Programs in the Office of the Associate Vice President for Multicultural and Academic Affairs. She co-founded the national Keeping our Faculties of Color Symposium which continues to this day. Turner currently serves as Immediate Past President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), the leading scholarly society for research on higher education. Turner’s research interests focus on access, equity, leadership, and qualitative approaches to policy research in higher education. Her work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals. She has also served on numerous peer-reviewed journal editorial boards and is one of the founding editorial advisory board members for the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Her publications, particularly Faculty of Color in Academe: Bittersweet Success (with Myers, Jr.) and Diversifying the Faculty: A Guidebook for Search Committees(widely adopted selling over 17,000 copies), advanced the dialogue on faculty gender and racial/ethnic diversity among scholars and practitioners. Her recent book, Modeling Mentoring Across Race/Ethnicity and Gender: Practices to Cultivate the Next Generation of Diverse Faculty (with González), addresses the preparation of the next generation of higher education professionals. Turner received her undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of California, Davis and her Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment

Senior Distinguished Elder

Edmund W. Gordon (Yale University)

CREA Affiliates (External)

Lisa Aponte - Soto (Tanoma Consulting, LLC)

Keena Arbuthnot (Louisiana State University)

Katrina Bledsoe (Abt Associates)

Ayesha Boyce (Arizona State University)

Nicole Bowman (Bowman Performance Consulting)

Martin Brown (Dublin City University/CREA Dublin) ›

Suzanne Callahan (Callahan Consulting)

Joshua Childs

Fiona Cram (Katoa Ltd.)

Kathryn Dinh (Lotus Evaluation)

Sylvia Epps (Decision Information Resources, Inc)

Olatokunbo (Toks) S. Fashola (American University)

Kevin E. Favor (Lincoln University)

Pamela Frazier-Anderson (Frazier-Anderson Research & Evaluation, LLC) ›

Henry Frierson (University of Florida)

Drew Gitomer (Rutgers University)

Leslie Goodyear (Education Development Center)

Andrea Guerrero-Guajardo (Bexar County Public Health)

Jori Hall (University of Illinois Chicago)

Melvin Hall (Northern Arizona University)

Tracy Hilliard (Lift Every Voice Evaluation, Research & Strategy)

Rodney Hopson (American University)

Emi Iwatani (Digital Promise)

Chandria Jones (University of Chicago)

Karen Kirkhart (Syracuse University)

Michelle Knight-Manuel (Teachers College, Columbia University)

Joan LaFrance (Mekinak Consulting)

Jacqueline Leonard (University of Wyoming)

Monique Liston (UBUNTU Research & Evaluation)

Laura Pan Luo (China Agriculture University)

Donna Mertens (Transformative Research and Evaluation)

Dominica McBride (BECOME, Inc)

Monica B. Mitchell (MERAssociates, LLC)

Sharon Nelson-Barber (WestEd Center for the Study of Culture and Language in Education)

Leah C. Neubauer (Northwestern University) ›

Joe O’Hara (Dublin City University/CREA Dublin)

Leah Peoples (Transformative Research)

Gregory Phillips II (Northwestern University) ›

Aileen Reid (University of North Carolina Greensboro)

Grisel Robles-Schrader (Northwestern University)

Eva Sarr (Centre for Multicultural Program Evaluation)

Katherine Tibbets, (Lili'uokalani Trust/CREA Hawaiʻi) ›

Caroline Turner (California State University-Sacramento)

MISSION

GOALS

SERVICES