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Diane Paulsell is an applied social scientist with more than 20 years of experience designing, conducting, and overseeing mixed-methods policy-focused research, including national multi-site studies. She has also led rapid cycle learning and program improvement efforts with a variety of human services programs and a foundation-funded research program to advance equitable access to family supportive services. Her areas of expertise range from early care and education to parenting, family engagement, youth development and family supportive policies and programs, including nutrition.

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).

René Nutter is the U.S. Food Security & Agriculture Client Account Lead. She has more than two decades of experience helping further food security and education in women and children. From studies with Yale, Harvard, and the Gates Foundation to a long and successful partnership with the USDA Food and Nutrition Services (FNS), she has led large data collection studies and evaluations, provided technical assistance, and helped train the next generation of researchers.

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.

Roslyn M. Brock, a nationally recognized civil rights, health policy, and equity advocate, is Abt Global’s Chief Global Equity Officer.  Brock is Chairman Emeritus of the National Board of Directors for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  She was the youngest person ever elected NAACP chairman and the fourth woman to hold the position.She has dedicated her career to improving equity and opportunity for all and is a widely honored change agent for social justice with deep experience in health.

Elizabeth Giardino’s evaluation and technical assistance work on housing, community development, asset building, and government innovation policies and programs promotes more equitable access to opportunity and healthy outcomes for people across the U.S. Giardino specializes in leading teams, strategic planning, and relationship building, and has proven expertise in community-based participatory research and incorporating equitable approaches into technical assistance engagements.

Mbuso Jama has more than 17 years of experience as a Monitoring Evaluation Accountability Research and Learning expert (MEAL and MERL). His work has involved humanitarian, rehabilitation, and development efforts in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Partnership countries. His experience ranges from designing MEAL systems for adaptive management to impact evaluations. He has worked on projects funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), United Nations, US Agency for International Development (USAID), Canadian International Development Agency, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, European Union, and European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations.

Alan McCagh has more than 20 years of experience in complex program management and technical oversight for government institutional strengthening, economic development, community development, democratic governance, and in the law and justice sector. A former senior Western Australia police officer, Alan has expertise in institutional strengthening of the police, courts, and prisons. He also has experience with grant-making facilities to improve community access to legal aid, policy dialogue, research, and crime prevention.

Jessica Gillmore is an international and community development professional with more than 20 years of experience working in Asia and the Pacific. She has expertise leading teams and managing complex donor programs across a diverse range of sectors including health, gender and women’s empowerment, community-driven development, education, governance and law and justice. She is highly skilled in program design, strategy development, research and evaluation and building stakeholder relationships with government, non-government, civil society and private sector organisations.

Katrina L. Bledsoe, Ph.D., is a trained evaluator, mixed methodologist, and social psychologist with evaluation experience in both U.S. and international settings. Dr. Bledsoe’s evaluation work has focused on community-based social services, health and education evaluation and programming, mixed methodology and methods, theory-driven evaluation, culturally responsive and equity-focused approaches, and topics in applied social psychology.