Strategic Data Project Convening 2026

I founded  Apex Evaluation in Albuquerque, New Mexico 25 years ago. We are a team of systems evaluators working with health, education, and social programs that address the wicked problems of inequity. We ascribe and aspire to Equitable Evaluation (EE) principles and practices, which the Center for Evaluation Innovation defines as “using evaluation as a tool for advancing equity and involves diversity of teams, cultural appropriateness and validity of methods, revealing drivers of inequity, empowering those more affected to shape and own how evaluation happens.” This work is deeply personal. I grew up on the wrong side of most of the social determinants of health, the second to youngest of seven children. I’m a first-generation college graduate and the product of the public K-12 and higher education systems. Growing up, my family could have benefitted from most of the programs in Apex’s portfolio. While I beat the odds and was fortunate to provide sufficient resources to my own daughters, these gaps in equity still exist for too many of my extended family and the communities I represent. With all the talk of positionality in evaluation, Edgar Villanueva says it best: “Those most excluded and exploited by today’s broken system possess exactly the perspective and wisdom needed to fix it.” That is how I see the value proposition of positionality, and I humbly count myself in that group. I'm excited to talk about Systems Learning, which I describe as "systems thinking meets equitable evaluation," and how it influences how we approach data and evidence.