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Hello friends!  I’m Lauren Wendling, PhD, and I am deeply passionate about recognizing and rewarding faculty who leverage their time, talent, and skills to advance community-identified issues.  I was excited to share some of my work with AEA colleagues at 2023’s annual conference but life (and a new baby!) got in the way!

“What are you going to do after you get your degree?” – this is the most common question a student gets during their years of study.  As a doctoral student studying Higher Education at Indiana University who was considering various post-degree pathways, I questioned where my work would have the most impact.  Currently, as a freshly minted PhD, I am very happily situated in the edtech field, at Collaboratory, where I assist institutions collect and strategically leverage community engagement data to advance campus and community efforts.

Greetings! We are Rugi Kane and Susan Igras, evaluators working across cultures and countries and recent facilitators of the AEA Professional Development Workshop in Portland, “Let’s Slay those adolescent and youth-focused program evaluations! Crucial concepts in planning evaluations and integrating meaningful youth engagement approaches and methods.”

We, Thomas Scialfa, Alaa Issa, and Tom Clark, work with the Mercy Corps Global Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) team based in Louisiana, USA; Amman, Jordan; and Edinburgh, Scotland, respectively. We are excited to share the critical importance of using a Scope of Work (SoW)/Terms of Reference (TOR) checklist when commissioning or leading midterm or final evaluations. Using this tool is helping us substantially improve the quality and effectiveness of our evaluations. 

Hello! We are Nicole Walshe (Independent Consultant), Marta Arranz (Director, Climate SMILE Community of Practice), Amelia Abdelrazik (Director of Operations and Impact at 128 Collective), and Anna Ploeg (Community and Communications Manager, Climate SMILE Community of Practice). We have teamed up under the Climate SMILE Community of Practice to explore how climate funders can support collective learning and equitable knowledge for climate action, and we are delighted to share with this community what we have been learning.

Hello, AEA365 community, and happy Conference Week from Portland! The AEA staff have been working overtime to prepare for our biggest event of the year. Whether you will be joining us for the conference or not, you can keep up with our happenings via the AEA365 blog. See you around! -Liz DiLuzio, Lead Curator Hi …

IRBs for Everyone: Part II by Phil Stoeklen and Team Viable Insights Read More »

Hi, my name is Sonia Chen. I’m a Principal Research Advisor at the Ministry of Health in New Zealand. In the last five years, I have transitioned from being a researcher and evaluator to overseeing research projects as a research commissioner and contract manager for the New Zealand government.

A crucial aspect of my role involves reviewing draft research reports and associated materials. During the review process, I have noticed some common issues.

Sometimes assumptions were presented as facts, sometimes survey questions lack the needed depth to provide the specific knowledge needed, sometimes as interesting as the findings are there is a misalignment between research aims and findings, and sometimes reporting structure and presentation of results (especially tables and charts) needed to be rearranged to effectively deliver important insight.

Hi fellow evaluators, this is Domonique, Vanessa, Mili, Jared, and Cristina of Harder + Company Community Research who works with public and social-sector organizations to promote lasting change. This blog post focuses on evaluation technical assistance (TA) as a practice for advancing equity through evaluation.

Hello, I’m Fardin (far-deen) Rahman, MPH. I joined the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) fellow in September 2023 after completing my Master’s degree earlier that year. It was quite a rapid transition—one moment I was a student and the next I’m a professional in the public health evaluation field. At the start of my fellowship, I struggled to let go of the familiar deadlines and commitments of graduate school to embrace the fluidity of the workplace. I want to share three lessons that helped me adjust to my new role and responsibilities while maintaining work-life balance.

Hello AEA365 subscribers! We are Alysson Akiko Oakley and Caitlin Blaser-Mapitsa, and we are the co-editors of the International Advances in Evaluation section of the American Journal of Evaluation (AJE). We are thrilled to share articles with you that are featured in an upcoming AJE issue. These articles highlight the interplay between geography (global, local), principles, and culture in informing evaluation practice.