To close out this week of AEA365 dedicated to the American Journal of Evaluation, we are introducing the journal’s Associate Editors! We are Stephanie A. Dopson, Melissa Rae Goodnight, Leanne Kallemeyn, John LaVelle, and Dana Linnell. Here we are going to each share our vision for the journal.
Stephanie: I am thrilled to be part of the new editorial board for AJE and serve with Laura and Rodney. My goal is for the journal to provide a space for the translation of scientific research into practice with findings that can be replicated across communities of practice. I have broad applied scientific and technical leadership over a twenty-four year career at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the areas of public health emergency preparedness and response, infectious and chronic diseases. I have been a responder for high-visibility initiatives/responses in the field for Ebola, Operation Allies Welcome, Polio, Monkeypox, H1N1, Hurricane Katrina and the anthrax attacks. I have taught graduate level evaluation and applied research and program evaluation.
Melissa: I appreciate this opportunity to collaborate with evaluation scholars and practitioners across our multifaceted field. I see the Associate Editor role in AJE as having a distinct responsibility for fostering greater diversity in the field of evaluation, especially in soliciting and supporting the scholarship of evaluators and researchers from underrepresented contexts and historically marginalized or minoritized backgrounds. My vision for AJE includes publishing articles that analyze pressing issues in program evaluation as well as monitoring and evaluation (M&E) like cultural responsiveness, justice, methodological design, validity, and data use. Drawing on my training in the fields of evaluation and comparative education, my professional experience and research are in the areas of cross-cultural and international evaluation, equity-focused theories, qualitative methodologies, research on evaluation, and K-12 education.
Leanne: My aim for AJE is to provide a space for evaluators to learn from each other and engage in critical reflection on their theory and practice. Such a space necessitates voices from various life experiences, sectors, and disciplines. I am committed to mentoring graduate students and early career professionals, welcoming new perspectives. My aims are rooted in my professional and life experiences. I have been a Principal Investigator on several educational evaluation projects, primarily teacher professional development programs. My scholarship focuses on practitioners’ data use, and developing evaluation practices that support equity-engagement, learning, moral-ethical decision-making, and capacity building. I teach graduate level program evaluation, qualitative research, and mixed methods research, and also engage in scholarship to support teaching evaluation.
John: First off, I have to share how much I appreciate AJE and the ethos brought by Laura, Rodney, and all the Associate Editors and Section Editors. I care about lots of areas in evaluation, and my home tends to be in the education and research realms. My hope for the journal is to bridge the worlds of practice and research because both are important and AJE can serve both. I hope to support this by asking contributors to be explicit about implications for their work for AJE readers by including discussion elements such as “Implications for practitioners,” “Implications for educators,” “implications for future research,” and “Implications for learners/students.” AJE readers are a smart bunch, and using these headers might make the articles more accessible.
Dana: I’m honored to continue serving AJE as an associate editor after previously serving with Tarek Azzam as co-section editor for the Method Note Section. Many scientific fields have been uncovering questionable research practices and findings that do not replicate. Given evaluation’s similarities with research and its scientific endeavor, evaluation is likely not immune to these concerns. As such, my vision is that AJE encourages open science practices that can help uncover and address these concerns through open science badges and alignment with the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines. Additionally, my hope is that authors preregister data collection or analysis plans, provide their publications open access through article processing charges or preprints, and share their data and materials openly.
We invite you to stay tuned for a second week of AEA365 dedicated to AJE in January 2024 when you will hear from the remaining section editors along with Editorial Board members and the Managing Editor and Co-Editors-in-Chief! In the meantime, start thinking about what you will write and submit to AJE to contribute to the evaluation field’s scholarly and practitioner discourse. Happy New Year!
The American Evaluation Association is hosting the American Journal of Evaluation (AJE). All posts this week are contributed by evaluators who work for AJE. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on theAEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org . AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.