The 2024 Plenary sessions will feature in-depth presentations that focus on this year’s theme: Amplifying and Empowering Voices in Evaluation.
Wednesday, October 23
Where AEA’s Future Meets AEA’s Past: Remembering Luminaries in the Field and Celebrating Voices of Emerging Evaluators
2:30 - 4:00 p.m.
Stay tuned for more details!
Thursday, October 24
The Intersection of AI and Evaluation, Thought Leadership around AI
8:30 - 10:00 a.m.
Moderator: Meredith Pearlman
Panelists
About Linda Raftree
Linda focuses on the ethical use of technology and data in international development, human rights, and humanitarian contexts. She is the founder of the MERL Tech Initiative (MTI) which has been exploring the responsible use of digital tools and data since 2014. Through MTI, Linda has played a strong role in bringing together critical thinkers from the monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL), data science, and digital technology sectors to collaborate, develop capacities and strengthen good practice.Linda convenes the MERL Tech Natural Language Processing Community of Practice (NLP-CoP) and the New York City Technology Salon. She has advised a range of foundations, bilateral agencies, and non-governmental organizations on responsible data policy and practice, applied research, digital safeguarding, inclusive digital approaches, and safe programming. Linda is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP & CIPM).
About Aileen Reid
Dr. Aileen M. Reid is an Assistant Professor of Educational Research Methodology and a Senior Fellow in the Office of Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Services (OAERS) at UNC Greensboro. Dr. Reid co-directs the STEM Program Evaluation Lab (SPEL), which provides training in research and evaluation for graduate and undergraduate students on STEM education projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health. Her research applies culturally responsive frameworks to program evaluation and educational measurement to investigate inequities in outcomes among underrepresented and minoritized groups. She also investigates values-engaged teaching, learning, and mentorship in research and evaluation. Dr. Reid presents and publishes her work in program evaluation, education, and the STEM disciplines.
About Zach Tilton
Zach Tilton is an evaluation specialist with The MERL Tech Initiative, where he supports practitioners and organizations in responsibly integrating artificial intelligence in their evaluation work and function. He is the Co-chair of the Sandbox working group in the Natural Language Processing Community of Practice. He is an outgoing member of the EvalYouth Management Group, where he has supported young and emerging evaluators worldwide. Zach’s field experience spans North and West Africa, South East Asia, and the Pacific, with over two years of development experience in rural communities. He is finishing a PhD in evaluation, and his research is focused on using AI for meta-evaluation.
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Friday, October 25
Participatory MEL and MEL Tech – Friends or Frenemies
8:30 - 10:00 a.m.
The theme of AEA’s 2024 event is “Amplifying and Empowering Voices in Evaluation,” challenging participants to think about how we are uplifting the voices of today’s youth, the historically underrepresented, the typically unheard in our evaluations.
One important way of elevating these voices has been participatory monitoring, evaluation, and accountability methods, emphasizing the active involvement of program participants in the design, implementation and evaluation of program MEL and accountability processes. Methods such as outcome harvesting, for example, allow evaluators to identify or verify outcomes based on the views of participants. Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) promotes pausing and reflecting with program teams, participants, and partners to evaluate activities critically.
MEL technologies have gained tremendous traction in recent years. Some of these – for example, technologies to analyze qualitative data – may enable or expedite participatory methods. Others – for example, the use of remote sensing in evaluations – may inadvertently reduce the use of participatory methods.
Through a panel conversation with representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the international humanitarian and development sector, this keynote will explore how the rise of M&E technologies has helped or hindered the use of participatory MEL and discuss lessons learned.
About Josh DeWald
Josh DeWald leads Mercy Corps’ Evidence & Learning Unit, which coordinates the organization’s strategic “evidence driven commitment,” focused on using data, evidence, and analytics to improve programs, scale what works, and influence others. In this role he coordinates teams focused on monitoring, evaluation, and learning; research and learning; crisis and context analysis; strategy results measurement; and evidence use.
Prior to this role, Josh was Mercy Corps’ Vice President for Program Performance and Quality. He has also held Regional Director, Country Director, Program Director, Program Manager, Technical Advisor, Program Officer, and emergency operations roles with Mercy Corps in South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and East Africa.
In addition to Mercy Corps, Josh has worked as a Division Director for an international agricultural research center, IFDC, coordinating activities in South and Southeast Asia; and, in Senior Director roles with Save the Children, focused on the design and implementation of large-scale food security and livelihoods programs, primarily in West and Southern Africa. He began working in the sector as a Peace Corps volunteer and consultant in Central Asia. Josh holds a master’s degree in Agricultural and Applied Economics from Clemson University, and is based in the Washington, DC area.
About Hanna Camp
Hanna Camp is the Director of MEL Technologies with Mercy Corps’ Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Team in the Evidence & Learning Unit. She leads global strategy development, training, and technical support for MEL Tech, and works with Mercy Corps programs across the globe to implement more efficient and effective processes for collecting, processing, and using MEL data. She also leads or collaborates on grant-funded projects developing resources for specific thematic areas such as reduced access MEL, context analysis, and use of remote sensing data for MEL.
Before joining Mercy Corps, Hanna worked as a data analyst and project manager for international development-focused organizations working in agricultural climatology analytics and in long-term scenario planning.
About Prabin Nanicha Shrestha
Prabin Nanicha Shrestha is the Regional Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Specialist with the Evaluation and Learning Unit (ELU) at The Asia Foundation. He is based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He supports over 20 country offices across Asia and the Pacific on the design of MEL systems and facilitates workshops on technology for MEL and Gender-responsive MEL. Prior to this role, Prabin was Equal Access International’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Lead in Nepal office.
Prabin brings insights into best practices, challenges and lessons learnt from the use of technology for participatory MEL based on his experience of working with communities and stakeholders on diverse issues such as gender-based violence, women empowerment, strengthening governance and countering violent extremism. Prabin has a Master's degree in Conflict, Peace and Development Studies and a Bachelor's degree in Social Work. He is also a co-leader of EvalYouth Asia -a regional chapter of EvalYouth Global Network. He collaborates with young and emerging evaluators in promoting localized and indigenous MEL methods.
About Eddah Kanini
Eddah has a multifaceted competence in Organizational Development, Monitoring, Evaluation and gender specialization and training. Her dedication to working with local and international organisations and national and Sub-national government to promote the production, transfer and use of evidence and sound technologies, in achieving sustainable development goals, has been exercised for the last thirteen years. Eddah is one of the founding members of Consultancy for Organizational development and Research (CODR) LTD as well as a Think Tank Data and Learning for Development in Africa (DALDA). As a leader, She is the current treasurer of AGDEN, Secretary General of MEPAK, Eastern Africa representative in the Board of AfrEA, and Sub-Saharan Africa representative in IDEAS. With her investigative mind, Eddah loves conducting research and evaluations and advising in the fields of health systems, WASH, climate change, Gender, Indigenous knowledge, Diversity Equity and Inclusivity (DEI) and sustainable development.
Eddah believes in passing her knowledge to others and has therefore been a mentor to many. She participated in mentoring the Young and Emerging Evaluators in 2019 under the EvalPartners program, mentored in MDE Partnering to Educate and Coach Evaluators (The PEACE) Project currently the Connexus and mentored youth entrepreneurs to successfully pitch in the Global Entrepreneurship Summit graced by the President of the United States (POTUS) H.E Barrack Obama. She also held a group mentorship program for women in Evaluation on jumping the Evaluation hurdles.
About Clara Hagens
Clara Hagens is a Senior Technical Advisor for Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) within the Program Quality and Impact team at Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Clara has worked with CRS for over 15 years and supported the development and institutionalization of agency MEAL policies and MEAL resources focused on design and development of MEAL systems, feedback mechanisms, learning approaches, and participatory evaluations. Clara also champions the use of MEAL DPro to build MEAL capacity among program, sectoral and MEAL teams alike and serves on the Board of Directors for PM4NGOs.
Clara holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health (MPH 2002) from Emory University and lives in Medellín, Colombia.
Saturday, October 26
Closing Plenary: Breaking the Echo Chamber: Amplifying Marginalized Voices to Resonate with the Dominant Narrative
10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Speaker: Bagele Chilisa
Professor Chilisa is a renowned post-colonial scholar, researcher, author, educator, and an important African thought leader. Some of the courses that she has been facilitating for over 30 years include Research design, policy design, and Measurement and Evaluation courses, among others. As a full Professor at the University of Botswana she has supervised more than 50 masters and PhD dissertations with diverse academic discourse and has served as external examiner for PhD thesis in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. Her interest in community-based research has driven her to write extensively on indigenous knowledge as well as publish a book titled “Indigenous Research methodologies”. A book that has sparked international discourse on importance of indigenous methodologies, especially in Africa. She has shared her intellectual knowledge about indigenous research methodologies on several platforms and at several conferences in Universities in South Africa, USA, Norway, UK, and Italy. With over 80 publications, Prof. Chilisa has been recognized as the Researcher of the Year and awarded UB Research Team Leadership at University Research Awards Ceremony in 2019. She has also been awarded the Prestigious USA National Institute of Health Research Award on capacity building on HIV/AIDS.
Stay tuned for more details!
Schedule is subject to change. More details coming soon!