Hello! My name is Nicki, and I joined the American Evaluation Association (AEA) staff this summer as a Membership and Operations Coordinator. I collaborate closely with the rest of the Membership and Operations team to support our membership, programs, and annual conferences.
I am excited to bring my background working in a think tank and with cultural non-profits to the organization. I enjoyed participating in my first AEA Conference this fall in Indianapolis and meeting some of you!
As part of my role, I serve as the staff liaison on the Awards Working Group (see the fantastic 2023 AEA Award recipients here and stay tuned for more information on 2024 Awards in the new year!), the Local Affiliate Collaborative, and the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG) in collaboration with the local affiliate in our conference host city as we develop local connections and leverage local resources to welcome our members to the conference site each year. We hope to see you in Portland this October at Evaluation 2024!
One of my personal highlights from the conference was listening to the Awards Recipients’ acceptance speeches. They each shared how becoming a part of AEA, some decades ago, played a pivotal role in supporting their professional growth and development as evaluators. They each spoke about how they met future colleagues, mentors, and even close personal friends through the community AEA provides. As one of the 2023 recipients of the AEA Marcia Guttentag Promising New Evaluator Award, Dana Linnell, shared in her acceptance speech:
“I may have finished my degree, but I still feel like this community has given me the opportunity to continue learning and relearning and unlearning a lot of things and helped me better understand what it means to be a teacher, an evaluator, a scholar, and most importantly, a human being.”
As we look to the year ahead, a key area of focus for AEA will be engaging emerging evaluators. I will be leading work with our university partners to strengthen our early career evaluator membership experience and communicate the variety of ways AEA can be a part of their professional journey.
AEA is a great place to begin your journey as an evaluator, whether you are currently in school (and can take advantage of our student membership option!) or beginning your career. AEA’s conference offers an opportunity to meet and network with over 2,000 evaluators and the workshops and breakout sessions are a great space to learn from those with varied experiences in the field. AEA’s 60+ Topical Interest Groups (TIGs) offer ways for early career evaluators to get connected with other members with similar interests.
As AEA kicks off the new year programs and initiatives, we are seeking volunteers for various Working Groups. This is a great opportunity to further your professional development, connect with evaluators from other fields, and share your expertise with the organization. If you are interested in participating, you can find out more information and submit an application by Friday, January 26th here.
I am excited for all that is to come for AEA in the next year and grateful to be part of a wonderful team and community in this new chapter of my career. Let me conclude this post by saying that if you are not already a member of the AEA community, I invite you to join us and be a part of all that is to come this year! You can learn more about the many benefits of membership and join here.
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