Boundless Readers 5153 North Clark Street, Suite 206 Chicago, IL 60640 p. 773.989.8582 e. info@boundlessreaders.org
© 2009 Boundless Readers
Catherine Awsumb Nelson, Ph.D.
Dr. Nelson is an independent evaluation consultant who helps organizations foster data-based decisions about programs, resources, and performance by incorporating evaluation information into their decision making and organizational routines. Current and recent clients include the Ball Foundation, The California Endowment, The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University, The Heinz Endowments, the Pittsburgh Public School District and City Charter High School in Pittsburgh. Through her ten year affiliation with the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center, she has done extensive applied work and research in the area of evaluation capacity building. She is currently serving as a consultant to the RAND Corporation on issues of evaluation design and qualitative data analysis.
Her approach blends traditional external evaluation with assistance in building internal staff skills and institutional infrastructure that enable organizations to use evaluation data and methods for both internal improvement and external accountability purposes. Methodologically, her work has a strong emphasis on the use of logic modeling to guide both program planning and evaluation design and strategies for integrating qualitative and quantitative data. She has written extensively on organizational learning and developing evaluation capacity.
Dr. Nelson received her B.A. in History from Yale University and her M.A. in Political Science and Ph.D. in Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Jennifer Iriti, Ph.D.
Dr. Iriti is a Research Associate and a program development and evaluation consultant based at the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research & Development Center. She has been providing evaluation and development expertise for education-related organizations for over 12 years. Current and recent clients include the Heinz Endowments Education Program, the InfoLink program based at Carnegie Mellon University, The California Endowment, Boundless Readers in Chicago, City Charter High School in Pittsburgh, The Ball Foundation, and both the National Writing Project and the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project. In addition to her evaluation work, Iriti often teaches courses on learning theory, action research, and human development to Masters-level students.
Iriti received her doctoral degree in Developmental and Educational Psychology with a minor in Research Methodology and a certificate in Interdisciplinary Policy and Evaluation at the University of Pittsburgh in 2003. Her training and experience in evaluation includes a wide range of quantitative and qualitative approaches and methodologies that she draws upon to design and implement evaluation plans tailored to the specific needs of the program. A particular skill Iriti has developed is integrating capacity-building components into traditional external evaluation designs so that client organizations are better able to use data to make decisions after the evaluation contract has concluded. Her content area expertise in professional development design and implementation, learning theory, and organizational learning makes her a particular asset to clients working in the education arena who are seeking to use evaluation to improve practice. Iriti has presented numerous manuscripts at the American Evaluation Association annual conferences, the American Educational Research Association conferences, is co-author of a chapter in the International Handbook of Educational Evaluation, and has most recently authored an article published in the American Journal of Evaluation.
External Evaluators: Summary Biographies
