About the Speakers: How to Win Support for Program Evaluation

As chief scientist, Jeannie Annan spearheads the agency’s efforts to build rigorous evidence about the impact, implementation, and cost of programs conducted during crisis or areas of conflict. Before becoming a researcher, Annan led education and psychosocial programming in Kosovo, northern Uganda, and South Sudan. She is a senior research associate at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, a research affiliate at the nonprofit Innovations for Poverty Action, and a coordinating group member of the Sexual Violence Research Initiative. Previously, Annan was a post-doctorate fellow at Yale and New York University and a visiting scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Joseph Pyle has more than 30 years of experience in philanthropy and healthcare leadership. He oversees the Scattergood Foundation, a behavioral health grant maker in Philadelphia that also provides training and technical assistance for program evaluation. Scattergood helps fund the RISE Partnership, which is a three-year, $3 million program to help nonprofits in Philadelphia and New Jersey improve their ability to measure results. As the head of Scattergood, Pyle has guided the foundation to focus on evaluation, design thinking (a people-centered approach to design), and community participation in programming. He also serves on several nonprofit boards focusing on health care, behavioral health, intellectual disabilities, and philanthropy.

Alex Daniels covers foundations and policy issues at the Chronicle. He recently wrote the report What Donors Want: Donor-Advised Funds and has covered donor-advised funds extensively. Previously, he covered business and politics for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow and an International Reporting Project fellow.