Principal Evaluator

Dr. Lauren Poniatowski is an evaluator, researcher and methodologist with more than fifteen years of experience in the field of program evaluation. She has a long record of collaborating with nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, K-12 and higher education professionals, and individuals to meet a diverse set of evaluation and research needs; throughout her career, she has worked with local, state, and national organizations to provide evaluation and research from strategic planning and design, to logic model and instrument development, to data analysis and presentation. A throughline in her research and evaluation work has been a focus on civic participation and democratic theories of evaluation. Dr. Poniatowski has led numerous studies and authored several papers related to democratic deliberation, voter knowledge, and civic rights and responsibilities. As an expert in mixed methods evaluation, she has designed and conducted evaluation projects exploring a wide range of issues and topics, including citizen science, BIPOC homeownership, emancipatory assessment, and career and college readiness.

Dr. Poniatowski received her undergraduate degree from Princeton University, with a focus on English Literature, and her PhD in Educational Foundations, Policy, and Practice from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She was previously a faculty member in the Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistical Analysis graduate department in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, where she taught courses in evaluation and research design and supervised research and evaluation projects in multiple capacities. She also worked as a faculty member at Bowdoin College, designing and teaching courses related to education philosophy, policy, and research methods. Dr. Poniatowski is passionate about designing and conducting equitable, responsible evaluation that builds organizational evaluative capacity.

Principal Evaluator

Zachariah Rabahhas evaluation consulting experience with foundations, non-profits, grassroots organizations, educational institutions, and public agencies. Zachariah’s previous evaluation projects include developing and implementing mixed-method evaluations, including interviews and surveys, focused on advocacy, civic engagement, social justice, public health, education, and systems change. He has worked directly with funders and grantees in evaluating early childhood care projects, including leading multi-year evaluation of an  early childhood equity and advocacy initiative funded by Blue Cross Blue Shield NC Foundation and Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust and co-leading a grassroots civic engagement initiative of the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation supporting caregiver and constituent-led efforts to foster child and family well-being. Zachariah has also provided thought leadership, strategic planning, and mixed-method evaluation services to help implement learning and systems change for regional cross-county early childhood and parent/caregiver support systems in Northern California. In addition to his experience in evaluation, he also has over 10 years of community organizing experience, including serving as the advocacy and civic engagement specialist of New York State with the Arab Community Center for Social and Economic Services, where he led the organization’s 2020 Census and GOTV efforts.

Zachariah holds a Master of Science degree in Measurement and Evaluation and a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from the American University, Washington D.C. He received a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from San Francisco State University.

Principal Evaluator

Dr. Keyondra Brooks is a community psychologist and mixed-method evaluator with over five years of experience collaborating with non-profit and philanthropic organizations via strategic planning, technical assistance, evaluation, and learning activities. Keyondra is especially passionate about driving projects and activities that promote equity, inclusion, and systems change.  Keyondra has designed and led multiple mixed-methods evaluation projects that center the needs, assets, and impacts of community-serving organizations and the communities they serve. Keyondra served as the project lead for the ProGeorgia Polling Project which sought to better understand the political motivations and needs of BIPOC Georgians and support ProGeorgia’s outreach efforts between major election cycles. In addition, Keyondra led a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation evaluation of the technical and financial support RWJF provided to grassroots organizations and grassroots organizations’ efforts to integrate caregivers and community members into their community organizing methods. Keyondra is an experienced project coordinator and methodologist and has co-developed evaluation questions and protocols with past clients. Keyondra obtained her Master’s in Clinical-Counseling Psychology from Valdosta State University and earned her Ph.D. in Community Psychology from Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas.

Principal Data Scientist

Dr. Jem Olejarczyk is of Polish, Native Hawaiian, and Chinese descent. She is a data scientist with over a decade of experience using a variety of statistical methodologies, developing and implementing ethical research design and practices, as well as leading program evaluations. She has a strong background in multivariate regression, factor analyses, propensity score matching, and psychometrics. She is adept at sharing stories using data visualizations in comprehensive reports and discussing complex findings to a wide variety of audiences. She has led multiple evaluations, which included co-designing, administering, and summarizing findings from previous polling surveys that highlighted BIPOC voices. Within the past three years, she has developed budgets, planned project tasks, developed project timelines, as well as managed teams across multiple research and evaluation projects ranging from a few months to five years with a budget ranging from $90,000 to $180,000 per year.

Principal Data Analyst

Eduardo Medina is a passionate evaluation data analyst with experience ranging from the analysis of chemical reactions at an atomic level to the analysis of the parameters driving social justice at an interstate level across the United States. In past projects, he has applied his analytical skills to perform disparity studies with the goal of advocating for equitable contract awards to Minority/Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) firms through the use of statistical analysis, survey programming, and evaluation.

Eduardo has a strong background in data collection development tools, statistics, and machine learning methods for exploratory data analysis and predictive/classification modeling. He uses his abilities to prioritize ethical research, conserve data integrity, perform data-driven recommendations, clear visualizations for different levels of understanding, and outcomes that will always promote social justice.