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Allison Dymnicki has 19 years of experience in designing, directing, and conducting research, evaluation, and technical assistance projects aimed at promoting youth development, behavioral health, and wellbeing, with a particular focus on school, community, and out-of-school settings. She is deeply committed to promoting positive outcomes for all youth, particularly populations who have been historically underserved or are under-resourced. She has partnered with federal agencies like the National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, and the Department of Education, as well as foundations, state and local educational agencies, and non-profit organizations. Much of her work focuses on developing researcher practitioner partnerships intended to elevate diverse perspectives, practitioner viewpoints, and youth voices. 

Natalie Arthur is a public health consultant with 20 years of experience working across health and human services sectors in Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, United Kingdom, and United Arab Emirates. Natalie has led numerous complex program evaluation, review, and service development projects for Commonwealth, Australian state and territory government, and non-government organizations. She specializes in health, mental health, and disability. Natalie led the data scenario modelling of a further eight health service plans in Victoria and South Australia. As she worked on more than 40 projects, she built invaluable technical and project management experience supporting clients through the translation of complex methodologies into clear, utilization-focused recommendations.

Julia Watson is an economist and health systems specialist with 25 years of experience working on both developed and developing country health systems. She has extensive experience managing people and programs and collaborating with a wide range of partners. Her work focuses on improving health financing systems and strengthening the stewardship role of governments in mixed health systems.

Michael Witt brings more than 33 years of experience as a statistician specializing in survey design and survey data analytics. He has more than 27 years of managing staff at the administrative and project level. Mr. Witt has worked with government clients in fields ranging from energy to healthcare.

Dr. James White, a registered nurse and Collaborative Specialist in Global Health (CSGH), is a senior health specialist with a focus on infectious disease and global health security (GHS). He has over 20 years of experience that includes delivery of emergency response programs in emergency and fragile settings, pandemic preparedness and response, health systems strengthening, and public-private collaboration for GHS. White has worked in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America assisting in both acute outbreak response and preparation for health emergencies. He also represents Abt as a technical expert on external GHS and pandemic preparedness working groups. His clients have included the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Kingdom’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and the Canadian International Development Association (CIDA) (now Global Affairs Canada).

Shelly Spoeth brings more than 25 years of strategic communication and social marketing experience to tackling complex health and social issues.  She  worked for a decade with pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients while at public relations firms including Ketchum, FleishmanHillard and Cohn & Wolfe. She then worked as a consultant for government and nonprofit clients, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on behavioral change challenges ranging from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. Spoeth has implemented, evaluated, and managed dozens of projects that improved health outcomes. Her capabilities include formative research and digital outreach.

Dr. Fiona Mactaggart is a multi-disciplinary technical advisor with more than 10 years of experience in monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL); infectious disease control; and public health. As a co-lead of Abt's MERL portfolio, she draws on complexity theory and scientific methods to help clients test what works, discover why it works, and provide timely evidence-based recommendations to inform important decisions about policy and practice. Mactaggart contributes to business development, programme delivery, and thought leadership. She works in five key areas: monitoring (e.g., design of digital tools and visualisation platforms) research (e.g., cross-sectional survey design), evaluation methodologies (e.g., contribution analysis), learning (e.g., portfolio level evidence-informed strategic decision making), and cross-cutting MERL capabilities (e.g., adaptive management and GEDSI). Mactaggart has worked extensively in the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Sean McClellan, Ph.D. is a mixed-methods researcher with over a decade of experience in full cycle health services research. He has experience managing research projects, developing analytic designs, cleaning and analyzing administrative data, fielding rigorous surveys, conducting qualitative interviews, and communicating findings in plain language.