2014 Winter

About the Authors

Marilyn Barger

Dr. Marilyn Barger is the Executive Director and Principle Investigator for the Florida Advanced Technological Education Center of Excellence (FL-ATE). This center focuses on high-technology manufacturing. Dr. Barger is also on EvaluATE's Community College Liason Panel.

Jason Burkhardt

Jason is currently a project manager at the Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University. He is also a PhD student in the Interdisciplinary PhD in evaluation program. He enjoys music, art, and the finer things in life.

Leslie Goodyear

Leslie Goodyear, PhD, is a researcher and evaluator who has significant experience leading complex evaluations of national programs and systems, particularly government-funded programs. She has conducted program and project evaluations in both formal and informal educational settings that serve youth, with a recent focus on STEM educational programs and programs that aim to broaden participation in STEM. She is the associate editor of the American Journal of Evaluation, a past board member of the American Evaluation Association (AEA), and former chair of the AEA Ethics Committee. She is also the lead editor of the book, Qualitative Inquiry in Evaluation: From Theory to Practice (2014).

Michael Lesiecki

Dr. Michael Lesiecki has over 20 years of experience championing collaborative-driven development, educational program growth, assessment, and advocacy. His federal grants development, management, and evaluation experience includes proposals and projects up to $20M. With a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry and collaborative industry experience, Dr. Lesiecki is uniquely knowledgeable about STEM education and high tech domains. Over the past two decades he has been deeply involved with the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education program acting as Principal Investigator, External Evaluator and Peer Reviewer. He now serves as the Principal of Luka Consulting LLC, a firm focused on evaluation services.

Jane Ostrander

Dr. Jane Ostrander is Principal Investigator for the National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education (NSF ATE) project Destination: Problem-Based Learning (PBL) (DUE#1161352), and Director of the Experiential Learning Center at Truckee Meadows Community College, Reno, NV. Ostrander serves on the Community College Liaison Panel for the ATE EvaluATE Center and as a Mentor for the Mentor-Connect for Leadership Development and Outreach Project. Her research interests include PBL, faculty professional development, online knowledge sharing in communities of practice, and social psychological interventions for transformative change. Prior to her project work Ostrander taught computer literacy, web site design, project management, and business.

Corey Smith

Corey Smith is a doctoral associate with EvaluATE. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in evaluation at Western Michigan University. His primary responsibilities with EvaluATE are to administer and manage the annual ATE survey, analyze data collected through that survey and produce reports, data snapshots and publications based on that data. PI’s may recognize his name from the flurry of nagging emails he sends about the annual survey each January through March.

Gordon Snyder

Gordon F. Snyder, Jr. is past Executive Director and Principal Investigator for the sunsetted National Center for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT Center) at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) in Massachusetts. He now serves as a Co Principal Investigator with the National Center for Optics and Photonics Education (OP-TEC) in Waco, Texas. At STCC he helped develop the Verizon Next Step program and continues to serve as a telecommunications curriculum consultant for the program. He is the author of four engineering and engineering technology textbooks and has over 20 years of consulting experience in the field of software development, communications and LAN/WAN design. In 2001 he was selected as one of the top fifteen technology faculty in the United States by Microsoft Corporation and the American Association of Community Colleges and in 2004 was selected as the Massachusetts Networking and Communications Council Workforce Development Leader of the year. He is well known in the social media space with his content followed by thousands. He has a strong interest in evaluation and the development of accessible tools evaluators and PI’s can use for communications and the formative enhancement of project impacts.

Lori Wingate

Lori has a Ph.D. in evaluation and more than 20 years of experience in the field of program evaluation. She is co-principal investigator of EvaluATE and leads and a variety of evaluation projects at WMU focused on STEM education, health, and higher education initiatives. Dr. Wingate has led numerous webinars and workshops on evaluation in a variety of contexts, including CDC University and the American Evaluation Association Summer Evaluation Institute. She is an associate member of the graduate faculty at WMU.