2017 Board of Directors & Leadership
The Washington Evaluators is managed by a Board of Directors as well as dozens of volunteers. Five voting Board positions are elected (unless filled by appointment due to vacancy) and three other voting Board positions are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Board. The 2017 Board members, as well as other Washington Evaluators leaders and volunteers, are listed below.
Elected Board Members
Nick Hart, Ph.D., President (2017).JPG)
Bipartisan Policy Center
@NickRHart
Dr. Nick Hart is the Director of the Evidence-Based Policymaking Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Prior to joining BPC he was the Policy and Research Director for the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking. He previously worked as a Senior Program Examiner with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, focused on Social Security and Federal anti-poverty programs. Prior to joining OMB, Dr. Hart was an Economic Research Analyst with the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. During his professional career he has served in positions at all levels of government -- Federal, state, and local -- and worked on a wide range of issues including environmental, energy, welfare, disability, economic development, and criminal justice policies. He completed a doctorate at The George Washington University's Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, with emphasis in program evaluation. He holds a Masters of Science in Environmental Science and a Masters of Public Affairs from Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and a Bachelor of Science from Truman State University. Dr. Hart also serves on AEA's Evaluation Policy Task Force and the Board of the Eastern Evaluation Research Society.
Stephanie Cabell , President-Elect (2018 President)
U.S. Department of State
Stephanie Cabell has served as the staff lead for evaluation in the Bureau of Budget and Planning at the US Department of State since November 2006. Previously, she served for 17 years as a performance specialist at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. She was hired by the State Department in 2006 to help grow the Department’s then nascent efforts to implement programmatic evaluations as a performance management tool and as a vehicle to learn what’s working and not working in foreign affairs programming. She was part of a team that drafted a Department-wide evaluation policy that was socialized among the Department’s 40+ bureaus and offices and eventually signed by the Deputy Secretary of State in February 2012. She has served as the staff lead to organize the Department of State annual Evaluation Institute (conference) since 2009, the mission of which is to highlight effective practices and methods in foreign affairs evaluations and to be a forum to address enduring topics, such as how to evaluate “diplomacy” or how to implement frameworks for evidence-based budgeting and decision-making.
David J. Bernstein, Ph.D., Past President (2016 President)
DJB Evaluation Consulting
Dr. David J. Bernstein is an independent consultant and owner of DJB Evaluation Consulting. He was previously a Senior Study Director at Westat, an employee-owned social science research consulting company based in Rockville, Maryland. Dr. Bernstein has over 30 years of professional experience in designing and conducting performance measurement systems, evaluation, strategic planning, and conducting mixed methods analysis. He is a frequent chair, panelist, and discussant at professional evaluation conferences and trainings including the American Evaluation Association (AEA) and the Eastern Evaluation Research Society (EERS) conferences. He is a nationally recognized expert on the relationship between performance measurement and evaluation, the role of sponsors and stakeholders in evaluation, and has been published in peer reviewed professional journals on these topics. Dr. Bernstein is an inaugural member of AEA, Past Chair of the AEA Government Evaluation Topical Interest Group (TIG), Nonprofit and Foundation TIG, and the Graduate Student and New Evaluator TIG. He has served on several AEA task forces and working groups, and is a past Co-Chair of the AEA Conference Local Arrangements Working Group (2002, 2013). He is currently serving as the 2017 AEA Conference Program Co-Chair. Dr. Bernstein is the recipient of the 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award from The George Washington University Trachtenberg School for Public Policy and Public Administration.
Martha Ann Carey, Ph.D., R.N., Treasurer (2017-2018)
Dr. Martha Ann Carey is a social psychologist and registered nurse whose experience developing, implementing, and evaluating social science research was gained through working with agencies of the U.S. government, including the Government Accountability Office, the National Institutes of Health (the National Institute of Nursing Research, and the National Institute of Mental Health), and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. She has overseen the development of support for and the progress of research programs, as well as the reviews of thousands of grant applications. She taught research design and qualitative methods courses in doctoral education and nursing programs. International work includes invited plenary and panel presentations and qualitative research workshops in Mexico, Thailand, South Korea, England, Australia, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Canada. Dr. Carey is the senior author of the book, Focus Group Research, which is based, in part, on work with adolescents, minority community health workers, methadone clinic clients in the South Bronx of New York City, a corporate training program evaluation, elders in social housing, and HIV patients in an early study in the US military. She continues to work with nonprofit organizations and mentors researchers through her work with Kells Consulting, a services research and training firm in Pennsylvania.
Kevin Jones, Secretary (2017) 
Urban Coalition for HIV/AIDS Prevention Services
Kevin
Jones serves as Executive Director of UCHAPS, a national coalition of health
department and community members committed to improving public health and
reducing HIV infections through collaboration based on key targets in the US
National HIV/AIDS Strategy. His extensive work in public health encompasses
health advocacy, academic and community research, performance measurement and
evaluation, and nonprofit executive leadership. For 15 years, he has worked to
build the capacity of nonprofit organizations to use data and participatory
community engagement and involvement to improve practices and inform
strategies. Prior to joining UCHAPS, Kevin served in leadership roles at the
D.C. Promise Neighborhood Initiative, Metro TeenAIDS and the University of
Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Kevin is from Detroit, Michigan. He
is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan and received master's degrees
from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the University of
Pennsylvania.
Appointed Board Members
Giovanni Dazzo, Program Committee Chair
U.S. Department of State
Giovanni Dazzo serves as an evaluation specialist with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), where he advises staff and grantees on program design and evaluation principles. Prior to joining DRL, he worked with Freedom House’s global rapid response funds, where he established systems to evaluate emergency financial assistance and urgent advocacy support for at-risk human rights activists. Prior to moving to Washington, DC, Giovanni worked in Italy and Cambodia, conducting applied research and program and policy evaluations for the European Commission, United Nations agencies, USAID and other bilateral donors, and international development banks. Giovanni holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and a master’s degree from Bocconi University’s School of Management in Milan. He is also an adjunct lecturer at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, teaching a graduate-level course on evaluation for foreign assistance programs.
Robin Kelley, Ph.D., Membership Committee Chair
National Minority AIDS Council
Robin Kelley has worked for over 15 years in a combination of community and academics endeavors. In academia, she has taught women’s health and human rights at Georgetown University and women’s health at George Washington University and at the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars. In the community, she has served as a program and evaluation consultant, program developer, program director and evaluator for community based mentoring and health organizations. The health organizations she has focused on vulnerable populations such as women, girls and those at high risk for HIV. She currently works with other organizations to help them build their capacity for evaluation services. She develops evaluation plans for over million dollar proposals and supervise staff and graduate students.
Patricia Moore Shaffer, Ph.D., Communications Committee Chair
National Endowment for the Arts
@patriciamooreshaffer
Dr. Patricia Moore Shaffer is the deputy director for research & analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and serves as agency lead for evaluation and performance measurement. She also holds responsibility for coordinating the agency’s strategic planning process. Prior to joining the NEA, Patricia served as the evaluation manager for NASA’s Office of Education and as vice president for research & development at the Educational Policy Institute. Patricia also owns a small evaluation firm that specializes in educational evaluation studies and evaluation capacity-building. As a federal evaluator and as an independent consultant, she has led a wide range of educational and arts program evaluations, ranging from national evaluation studies conducted for federal agencies including the Library of Congress and NASA to smaller-scale research and evaluation studies for state agencies, school districts, and nonprofit organizations. She also serves as treasurer for the Consortium for Research on Educational Assessment and Teaching Effectiveness. Patricia earned a Ph.D. in Educational Policy, Planning and Leadership at the College of William & Mary, a M.A. in Curriculum Studies at the University of Toronto, and also holds a bachelors degree in the visual arts.
Task Force and Working Group Chairs
Val Caracelli, Ph.D., Chair, New Professional and Student Task Force
U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
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.
Giovanni Dazzo, Co-Chair, Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG) for Evaluation 2017
U.S. Department of State
Mary Hyde, Ph.D., Chair, Washington-Baltimore Collaboration Task Force
Corporation for National and Community Service
Dr. Mary Hyde is a community psychologist with over 20 years of research, evaluation, technical assistance, and training experience in social and human services. She is responsible for advancing the evidence base for national service programs as well as fostering a culture of evaluation within the agency and the field. Prior to joining CNCS, Dr. Hyde was a Principal with ICF International and responsible for a portfolio of projects related to strengthening families and communities. Prior to joining ICF, Dr. Hyde developed her unique skill set by directing and managing both national and local program evaluations. The primary focus of Dr. Hyde’s evaluation practice has been community- and school-based programs designed to prevent delinquency and school drop-out and promote social and academic success among urban youth. Dr. Hyde has also conducted research in the areas of welfare-reform policy. Dr. Hyde also serves on AEA's Evaluation Policy Task Force.
Jonathan Jones, Ph.D., Co-Chair, Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG) for Evaluation 2017
CAMRIS International Donna Mertens, Ph.D., International Representative
Gallaudet University
Dr. Donna M Mertens is Professor Emeritus at Gallaudet University, a university with a mission to serve Deaf and hard of hearing students. Mertens developed the transformative approach to evaluation as a response to concerns raised by members of marginalized communities about the harm done when evaluations are designed without considering issues of discrimination and social justice. Mertens published Mixed Methods Design in Evaluation (2018) with Sage and Program Evaluation Theory and Practice (2012) with Guilford Press. She served as the editor of the Journal of Mixed Methods Research for 5 years and chaired the Mixed Methods International Research Association’s task force on the future of mixed methods: challenges and opportunities 2015-2016. She is an active evaluator and currently engaged in the enterprise across a variety of settings. She held long-term leadership positions in AEA, including the presidential position 1997-1999 and the Board 2000-2002.
Tamarah Moss, Ph.D., Chair, Scholarship Task Force
Howard University School of Social Work
Dr. Tamarah Moss is an Assistant Professor with Howard University School of Social Work. She has experience in HIV prevention and behavioral interventions across the life span, adolescent pregnancy and parenting as well as health and social services delivery with marginalized communities. Dr. Moss has also worked on evaluation-related activities with Advocates for Youth, American Psychological Association’s Behavioral Social Scientist Volunteer Program, Bahamas AIDS Foundation, Broward County Health Department, Planned Parenthood of South Florida and the Treasure Coast, UN Population Fund and USAID. Dr. Moss was recently a Fellow with the American Evaluation Association’s (AEA) Minority Serving Institutions Fellowship Program, and is as a member of the AEA International Working Group. She is currently also a member of the Caribbean Evaluators International and teaches courses in community practice, research methods and evaluation at the graduate level.
Brian Yoder, Ph.D., Chair, EvalAction: Evaluators Visit Capitol Hill Task Force
American Society for Engineering Education
@brianlyoder
Dr. Brian Yoder is Director of Assessment, Evaluation, and Institutional Research at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). He oversees annual data collection for ASEE’s benchmark surveys of engineering schools, and leads research and evaluation of federally funded and industry funded projects in areas related to engineering education and STEM education. He is a past Chair of AEA’s Government Evaluation Topical Interest Group. He previously spearheaded the Evaluators Visit Capitol Hill initiative in 2013, a collaboration between AEA’s Evaluation Policy Task Force (EPTF) and Washington Evaluators which organized and provided guidance to AEA members to visit the office of their congress person during the AEA conference in Washington, D.C.
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