2019 Network Facilitators
1. World Bank - Sheila Jagannatha
Sheila Jagannathan is Lead Learning Specialist and Program Manager of the OLC, which is part of the Global Operations Knowledge Management practice of the World Bank. She serves as the organization’s focal point on digital learning and issues at the intersection of technology use and education in emerging countries. She is an innovative and strategic educational leader with over 28 years experience in designing and managing distance learning programs/knowledge products and transforming the use of online and classroom pedagogies and technology. Sheila also provides policy advice and technical assistance to World Bank country-level capacity building programs (both government and training institutes seeking to introduce technologies in their educational systems) in, East Asia, China, the Middle East and North Africa, Africa and South Asia.
Her current areas of interest and activity include: MOOCs, experiential pedagogy, online/hybrid strategies, development of rich multimodal and social learning environments, big data and learning analytics, LMS and learning ecosystems. She serves on the advisory board and planning committees of several professional associations such as e-Learning Africa, the International Conference on e-Learning (ICEL) and the Association of Advancement of Computer Education (AACE). She holds a Masters and Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies from Boston University in Education Media and Technology and Artificial Intelligence-based systems for learning respectively.
2. GAO --Val Caracelli and Monica Savoy
Dr. Valerie Caracelli is a Senior Social Science Analyst in the Center for Evaluation Methods and Issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Valerie assists in conducting congressionally requested studies and consults with GAO Teams on evaluation design issues. She has published in leading evaluation journals and has served on a variety of editorial review boards. She received her undergraduate degree in Psychology in 1979 and her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University in 1988. Valerie has been a member of the American Evaluation Association since its founding. On the AEA Board of Directors from 2007-2009, she served as liaison to the Ethics Committee and helped develop additional case study training materials on the Guiding Principles for Evaluators. She recently received the 2016 AEA Robert Ingle Service Award. Valerie has been active in the Washington Evaluators, one of AEA's first local affiliates, serving as board member and in other positions for over 20 years.
AND
Dr. Savoy serves as a senior design methodologist at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in Washington, D.C .on the GAO Applied Research and Methods team, providing consultation to program evaluation and audit teams for social programs, education, national defense, international affairs, and natural resources. Dr. Savoy is also adjunct faculty at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Learning Center, where she teaches courses on content analysis and focus group methodologies.
3. Westat – Nanmathi Manian
Dr. Nanmathi Manian is a Westat Senior Study Director with 15 years of experience in research design and implementation, focusing on children, youth, and families. She is a skilled program evaluator with in-depth knowledge of diverse content areas (child development, maternal and child mental health, and mental health services) as well as expertise in mixed-methods approaches to data collection and analyses. At Westat, she has conducted several national and international evaluations, focusing on topics such as reintegration of children from residential care facilities in Uganda, incorporation of trauma into community programs in rural and urban areas, and socioemotional learning in classrooms across the US. In addition, she has been a consultant for various NICHD and NIMH studies, provided methodological expertise to students for their doctoral dissertations. Dr. Manian has been invited to deliver guest lectures at several institutions in the US and India, and has held adjunct teaching positions.
4. Gallaudet University – Donna Mertens
Mertens is Professor Emeritus at Gallaudet University with a specialization in research and evaluation methodologies designed to support social transformation. She has authored, co-authored, or edited many books related to evaluation methods and human rights, most recently Program Evaluation Theory and Practice 2 nd ed; Mixed Methods Design in Evaluation; Research and Evaluation in Education and Psychology: Integrating Diversity with Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods 5 th ed.; Indigenous Pathways into Social Research, and Transformative Research and Evaluation. She focuses on the intersection of evaluation with social justice and human rights within the philosophical assumptions of the transformative paradigm. Mertens served as the Editor for the Journal of Mixed Methods Research 2010-2014. She was President of the American Evaluation Association in 1998 and served on the Board from 1997-2002; she was a founding Board member of the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation and the Mixed Methods International Research Association.
5. Vital Voices – Anewar Burka
Anewar is a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Specialist for M&E department at Vital Voices. He provides Technical Assistance on M&E, Data collection, analysis, and collaborative learning across all VV programs to strengthen program management, donor reporting and organizational learning.
For more than 11 years of his career, Anewar has been working on Non-profit Project Management focusing on Monitoring and Evaluation. Prior to joining Vital Voices, he has been working with Population Services International and Save the Children in Ethiopia in similar role.
6. Howard University – Stacey Little
Stacey Little has over 20 years of project development and leadership experience in private non-profit and community-based organizations, with focus on maternal and child health, STD/HIV prevention, family planning, and men's health. Currently Dr. Little is the Acting Director of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau and the Director of the Office of Family and Community Health Services at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (MD DHMH). Prior to joining the MD DHMH, she was the Director of the Center on AIDS and Community Health at FHI 360 and served as a Principal Investigator (PI) for the Robert Wood Johnson Quality Assessment Research and Evaluation Project, Project Director of a CDC funded Capacity Building Assistance Cooperative Agreement to CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, and the Partnership Director for the NIH HIV Vaccine Research Education Initiative. Dr. Little holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Social Work and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Pittsburgh, a Master's degree in Social Work from Howard University and a Bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
7. Mathematica – Clemencia Cosentino
Clemencia Cosentino (Ph.D., Sociology, Princeton University) is a Senior Fellow and Director of STEM Research Mathematica Policy Research, and the former director of the Program for Evaluation and Equity Research at the Urban Institute. She has more than 20 years of experience studying factors that influence educational attainment among underrepresented and underserved groups. Much of her work centers on large scale evaluations of efforts to improve the participation of underrepresented groups in education and in the scientific workforce. Findings from her work have provided rigorous evidence of effectiveness as well as formative feedback to guide decision making at public and private foundations, including the National Science Foundation, the Mastercard Foundation and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
8. Oxfam – Stephen Porter
Stephen Porter is currently the Director for the Learning, Effectiveness and Accountability Department at Oxfam America. Stephen has a range of experience in development practice, including academic, donor and experience applying a rights-based approach to evaluation. Previously, Stephen was Evaluation Advisor for Market Development at the UK Department for International Development. He has also served as a monitoring, evaluation and learning advisor for the Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa, and the African Medical and Research Foundation. In 2010 Stephen assumed the role of Lecturer in Monitoring and Evaluation and Director of the Center for Learning on Evaluation and Results for Anglophone Africa at the University of Witwatersrand. He holds an MPhil in Public Policy from the University of Cape Town. He has undertaken PhD research on a rights-based approach to development evaluation at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Stephen has had a number of journal and book chapters published on the topic of evaluation systems development. Stephen has worked in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana and Benin, as well as advising on evaluation activities in a number of other countries.
9. The Tete Group – Brooke McKie
Dr. Brooke McKie is the owner and director of The Tête Group, LLC, a woman-and minority-owned consulting company in Washington, DC. Dr. McKie is an educational psychologist specializing in educational research and program evaluation. Prior to founding The Tête Group, LLC, Dr. McKie was senior program director at Howard University Center for Urban Progress and led a large-scale early childhood evaluation initiative in the District of Columbia community-based organizations, public charter schools, and public schools for 9 years funded by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, Division of Early Learning (OSSE/DEL). Dr. McKie earned a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and a M.A. in School Psychology from Howard University and a B.A. in Psychology from Syracuse University.
10. Annie E Casey – Kantayanee Murray
Dr. Kantahyanee Murray is a Senior Research Associate in the Research, Evaluation, Evidence and Data (REED) Unit of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. In this role, she plans evaluations and commissions evaluation research in the areas of place-based two-generation practice and evidence-based practice led by community coalitions. Kantahyanee led Casey’s Expanding the Bench initiative which aims to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the field of evaluation. Under her leadership, more than 500 underrepresented researchers engaged in training and networking opportunities including an evaluation pipeline training program (Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity) and the Advancing Collaborative Evaluation (ACE) Network of underrepresented evaluators. She manages a portfolio of grants to build REED’s capacity to apply racial and ethnic equity and inclusion approaches in evaluation grantmaking, planning and execution. In prior work, Kantahyanee led community-based, state and federally funded research and evaluation projects at the University of Maryland School of Social Work in the area of child/youth health and well-being.
11. DJB Consulting – David Bernstein
Dr. David J. Bernstein is an independent consultant and owner of DJB Evaluation Consulting. He is also the Director of Evaluation for the General Commission on Religion and Race of the United Methodist Church. He has over 35 years of professional experience in public administration, evaluation, performance measurement, strategic planning, quantitative and qualitative analysis methods, and nonprofit research. Dr. Bernstein’s research has emphasized use of performance measures and evaluation results and the involvement of stakeholders. He is a member of the American Evaluation Association and Past-president of Washington Evaluators, the Washington, DC area affiliate. Dr. Bernstein received his Ph.D. in Public Administration (2000) and a Master of Public Administration (1983) from The George Washington University. Dr. Bernstein is the recipient of the 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award from The George Washington University Trachtenberg School for Public Affairs and Administration, and serves on the School’s Alumni Advisory Board.
