Background
I grew up in York, PA, and spent my youth in the Northeast. After completing an MPA at the University of Washington and serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, I worked with a Seattle-based consulting firm to conduct program evaluations with nonprofits and public agencies. These experiences inspired my career-long passion for equity-focused program evaluation and applied research that support organizations’ social missions. I later pursued a doctorate concentrating in program evaluation in Washington, DC, while conducting evaluations of federally-funded university-based programs. I completed my dissertation in New Orleans, where my partner of 20+ years was born, and was hired as faculty at the University of New Orleans, focusing my scholarship on supporting local nonprofits there.
Education
- PhD, Public Policy & Administration, George Washington University, 2018
- MPA, University of Washington, 2008
- BA, Psychology, Columbia University, 2005
Courses
- PUBA 602: Introduction to Public Administration
- PUBA 604: Leadership and Ethics
- PUBA 631: Nonprofit Management Practices and Tools
Specializations
Nonprofit Management, Program Evaluation, Disaster Response and Resilience, Social Equity, and Public Service Education.
Research
I follow an interdisciplinary, practice-focused research agenda in an effort to listen and respond to my local community’s most urgent priorities. This approach has led me to forge a long-term partnership with a community foundation to collaboratively conduct a series of sector-wide survey and evaluation studies of Greater New Orleans nonprofits as they adapted through the COVID-19 pandemic, responded to category-4 Hurricane Ida and other regional disasters, shifted fundraising and advocacy strategies in response to policy changes at all levels of government, and accelerated efforts to advance social and racial equity in the region. I hope to build similarly trusting and mutually beneficial research partnerships with community-based organizations in Hawai’i, which I now proudly call home.
Community Engagement
I attempt to approach all of my research, teaching, and service activities in a deeply collaborative, participatory, and interconnected manner. I likewise aspire to serve my community with humility and cultural responsiveness. I particularly enjoy facilitating opportunities for students to engage in meaningful service learning, applied research, and evaluation projects, both to meet community needs and channel their passions towards helpful knowledge-building and concrete action. While in New Orleans, I co-founded an interdisciplinary PhD in Justice Studies and helped guide numerous student-led research projects and service learning experiences with community-based organizations. I hope to cultivate similarly impactful partnerships in Hawai’i to help our community flourish for all of us.