About Us
In This Section
Julia Coffman is director of the Center for Evaluation Innovation and founded the organization in 2009. For 25 years she has worked with foundations on their approaches to evaluation. Julia leads the organization’s evaluation work and has particular expertise in evaluating advocacy and policy efforts, emphasizing real-time learning that helps organizations to adapt their strategies and continuously improve. For 15 years prior to founding CEI, she led evaluation efforts at the Harvard Family Research Project, a research and evaluation organization at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Julia has a graduate degree in justice studies from Arizona State University and an undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Email Julia.
Tanya Beer is associate director of the Center for Evaluation Innovation. She leads the organization’s work with the Evaluation Roundtable, a network of evaluation and learning leaders in over 100 foundations across the US and in Canada. Tanya has a broad range of evaluation experience in the philanthropic, nonprofit, and public sectors, and has consulted with numerous foundations on strategy, evaluation, and learning. She has deep expertise with developmental evaluation, emergent strategy, strategic learning, systems thinking, and advocacy evaluation. Prior to joining CEI, she was assistant director of Research, Evaluation, and Strategic Learning at The Colorado Trust, a private health conversion foundation. Tanya holds graduate degrees in public administration and international relations from Syracuse University, and an undergraduate degree in English and communication studies from Drake University in Iowa. Email Tanya.
Kat Athanasiades is senior associate at the Center for Evaluation Innovation. She brings expertise in advocacy evaluation, network and systems evaluation, and evaluation capacity building. Prior to joining CEI, Kat was a senior team member at Innovation Network, a nonprofit evaluation consulting firm that supports the evaluation needs of foundations and nonprofits. For five years, she led, wrote, and presented on evaluation and research engagements such as coalition and network assessment, immigration reform, and the state of nonprofit evaluation in the US. Before coming to Innovation Network, Kat was part of the impact assessment unit at the Ford Foundation, where she supported their evaluation and continuous learning programs. Kat holds a graduate degree in international affairs from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree in sociology and anthropology from Swarthmore College. Email Kat.
Albertina Lopez is senior associate at the Center for Evaluation Innovation. She supports the organization’s evaluation portfolio and Evaluation Roundtable work, applying her expertise in leadership, evaluation capacity building, philanthropy, organizational development and learning, research design and data analysis, and evaluation approaches that emphasize strategic learning. Prior to joining CEI, she worked with Kaiser Permanente’s Community Benefit in Southern California where she managed evaluation, learning, and strategic planning for major grant initiatives. Before that, she consulted at the Claremont Evaluation Center and worked with nonprofits to help them make program and organizational improvements and meet accountability requirements. Albertina has a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University in evaluation, applied research methods, and organizational behavior and an undergraduate degree from San Jose State University in psychology and philosophy. Email Aly.
Mariah Brothe Gantz is an associate at the Center for Evaluation Innovation. She started her career in service learning and civic engagement with youth, where she began to learn about the importance of evaluation and the role it can play in creating cultural and societal change. Before joining CEI, she worked with the Leadership Conference Education Fund as the lead data analyst on the Communities Against Hate Initiative. Mariah has a graduate degree in public administration from the George Washington University with an emphasis in nonprofit management, and an undergraduate degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Northern Colorado. Email Mariah.