Chari Smith (she/her)

President

Chari Smith believes evaluation should be accessible, practical and usable. She founded Evaluation into Action to help nonprofit professionals create realistic and meaningful program evaluation processes. She has taught several workshops helping nonprofit professionals understand the value and use of program evaluation. Her book, Nonprofit Program Evaluation Made Simple: Get Your Data. Show Your Impact. Improve Your Programs., provides step by step instruction on how to do program evaluation.

Chari is a proud member of the American Evaluation Association (AEA), Oregon Program Evaluators Network (OPEN) and the International Society of Evaluation Education (ISEE). She is also an adjunct faculty member for the University of Portland’s Pamplin School of Business Nonprofit MBA program. You can learn more at www.evaluationintoaction.com 

Jerian Abel, Ph.D. (She/they)

President-Elect 

Jerian Abel, Ph.D.(she/they) is Director of Research & Assessment at the Portland Metro STEM Partnership (PMSP), a program at PSU. She also provides training and consulting to staff, community programs, and partners related to program design & evaluation.  She loves writing grants and technical editing. For enjoyment, she practices Tai Chi, gardens, and playing  with her 4-year old black lab, Pepper.

Prior to joining PMSP, Dr. Abel worked for 16 years at Education Northwest conducting research and evaluation of school reform, working directly with schools. She has taught high school physics & math. She was also a practicing scientist/engineer on a variety of Federal R&D projects.

Beryl Neequaye (she/her)
Communication Officer

Beryl Neequaye has been doing program evaluation for over five years and is currently an Evaluation and Data Specialist at The Research Institute (TRI) in the Center on Evaluation, Technology & Research (CETR). In this role, Beryl uses data visualization tools, database management techniques, and culturally responsive approaches to evaluate programs for continuous quality improvement.

She enjoys working with faculty, staff, clients, and other stakeholders in the development of evaluation plans for proposals to federal, state, or local funding agencies.

Beenish Mehboob

Events Officer

She volunteers for OPEN as an events officer 

Beenish Mehboob is an Evaluation Specialist at NARA Northwest, where she works to improve public health evaluation efforts across diverse programs in the Pacific Northwest. She is a member of American Evaluation Association. She has a passion for humanitarian aid work!  she loves to work in field of public health, continuing her dedication to improving health outcomes and making a positive impact in the field.

Beenish holds an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health and an MSc in Health Policy and Management from Brandeis University, along with an MBBS from Dow University of Health Sciences. She recently completed a data analytics bootcamp at UC Berkeley, further strengthening her skills in public health and data analytics, including proficiency in Python, SQL, R, and tools like Excel, Tableau, and Power BI. Her career is marked by a commitment to transforming complex data into actionable insights and improving public health outcomes, particularly among underserved populations.

Tryce Taylor (she/her/hers)
Community Outreach & Program Development 

Martryce Alita Taylor, B.A. M.A.   

 Martryce [P: MAR-TRICE], a Pan-American Creole, is a multi-talented woman with an academic background in legal philosophy ( B.A. Philosophy, CSU Fresno), education and community learning at the collegiate level ( M.A. Education: Educational Leadership and Administration, CSU Fresno). She is completing extended study in Applied Statistics (Portland State University) and licensure requirements to become a Clinical Mental Health Counselor (M.A. Counseling, Antioch University- New England).  

Her experience includes evaluation for accreditation, attestation, programming, and business management; database, web page, and analytic coding; fundraising, grant writing, fiduciary stewardship, and donor relations; as well as teaching, workshop facilitation, and co-curricular programming for special populations, community members, and K through collegiate education.   

She is currently adding to her focuses in service, social dynamics, culture, and equity infrastructure to include mental health diagnostics and factor analysis for social health outcomes.  

Martryce is a member of the Oregon Program Evaluators Network and a contributor to Chi Sigma Iota, the National Association of Black Counselors, the American Counseling Association, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, and One Big Family Oregon.   

Justin Caouette (he/him)

Special Projects/Growth and Development Committee chair 

Justin is a Research Scientist with the Social Development Research Group (SDRG), using his subject matter expertise in adolescent behavioral health to promote positive youth development through rigorous prevention science. He completed his PhD in Human Development from the University of California, Davis in 2016. Upon graduating, he moved to Portland, Oregon to pursue a postdoctoral position in the Department of Psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University. Justin then held lectureship roles in the Prevention Science and Psychology departments at the University of Oregon, helping to connect working professionals in the social services and community health sectors with the science of program evaluation. Recently Justin has begun to expand his commitment to service work, joining councils for OPEN and Cascade AIDS Project. In the long term, Justin's mission is to work with motivated teams to improve public health through building capacity for schools and communities to implement tested and effective prevention programs.