About Us

Leslie Goodyear, an internationally recognized expert in evaluation and EDC distinguished scholar, is a past president of the American Evaluation Association (AEA). She has deep expertise in qualitative inquiry, evaluation ethics, culturally responsive evaluation, evaluation storytelling and other methods of sharing findings, evaluating out-of-school and informal STEM education programs, and building communities of practice.

Goodyear leads evaluations, facilitates evaluation capacity building, and is an evaluation adviser for clients and colleagues. She is deeply committed to deepening understanding of effective approaches to fostering equity and access in STEM education and is a co-principal investigator of the NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub.

Previously, as a National Science Foundation (NSF) program officer, Goodyear helped build organizational evaluation capacity and was a commissioner of evaluations. She has served as the Ethics Section editor and associate editor of the American Journal of Evaluation and has been an AEA board member and chair of its Ethics Committee.

Goodyear holds a PhD and MS in Program Evaluation and Planning from Cornell University and a BA in Developmental Psychology from Macalester College.

Sophia Mansori, an expert in program evaluation, deepens understanding of the ingredients of successful educational innovations in domestic and international settings. She has extensive experience in qualitative and mixed-methods research, formative and summative evaluation, survey design and data collection, logic model design, stakeholder engagement, evaluation capacity-building, and the management of large-scale, multisite data collection efforts.

Mansori leads and co-leads evaluations that advance knowledge of strategies to improve STEM education, out-of-school time learning, youth development, organizational development, and student-centered learning. Partnering with funders and programs, she designs and conducts evaluations that support continuous improvement, accountability, and dissemination of results.

Currently, Mansori leads evaluations of the Amgen Biotech Experience Program Office at EDC and Illinois 21st Century Community Learning Center program. Previously, she contributed to the National Academy of Science’s Communicating Chemistry in Informal Settings project and was the project director for EDC’s evaluation of Adobe Youth Voices for six years.

Mansori holds a BA from Tufts University, has an MEd from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is a member of the American Evaluation Association.

Evangeline Ambat is an experienced technical assistance specialist, evaluator, and project manager. She has extensive expertise building capacity to strengthen formal and informal public education systems internationally and domestically. She also leads and supports communities of practice.

Ambat is the lead online community manager for the national network of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) INCLUDES initiative, which seeks to broaden participation in STEM careers. She advances the goals of EDC’s NSF-funded AGEP Evaluation Capacity Building Conference (ECBC) project to build the capacity of AGEP evaluators. She also co-leads REL Northeast & Islands at EDC initiatives to build the capacity of Vermont supervisory unions to make evidence-based decisions.

Ambat is a co-director and a board member for Calcutta Kids Trust. Prior to EDC, she was a consultant at the Child in Need Institute (CINI), and she trained state government representatives to improve health and education policies for adolescent girls.

Ambat holds an MEd in Education, Policy, Research, and Administration from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and an MA in Applied Psychology from the Rajabazar Science College of Calcutta University.