MI-LSAMP Evaluation Team
The evaluation team is made up of Kenneth Rath, Dominique Graham, and David Bell
Dr. Kenneth Rath is the director and sole employee of Rath Educational Evaluation & Research (krathreer.com). He has been working as an evaluator and educational researcher since 1998, when he was in graduate school, and worked for an evaluation firm for many years before starting his own business in 2019. Although he is based in Amherst, MA, over the years he has supported projects across the nation, from California to Alabama to, of course, Michigan.
As an evaluator, Ken is particularly interested in projects that support social and environmental justice. He is currently working with a number of projects that help underrepresented students achieve their potential, including the MI-LSAMP and LSAMP projects in New Jersey, as well as projects that focus on assisting individuals with sensory disabilities and aim at helping individuals understand and act to mitigate the climate crisis.
Dominique Graham is the co-lead evaluator for the MI-LSAMP project. She has served in student support services for nearly a decade at Rutgers University. Dominique has been a program coordinator for the GS-LSAMP program in New Jersey and worked with many other initiatives to improve the diversity in STEM fields. In addition to having a background in program evaluation and DEI initiatives, Dominique brings a deep understanding of the experience of such programs from both a student and institutional perspective. She participated as a LSAMP student and serves on the mentorship committee for the National Association of LSAMP Alumni (NALA).
Dominique is currently a doctoral student, earned a master’s degree in Learning, Cognition and Development, and Bachelor’s in Biological Sciences. She is committed to understanding how to improve the education system for system impacted learners and enjoys working on the MI-LSAMP project to serve the community that shaped her today.
Dr. David Bell is a Professor of the Practice of International Development and Social Change at Clark University. In addition to teaching courses at the nexus of education and international development, he teaches courses on program monitoring and evaluation and research and evaluation methods. As an evaluator, Dave has a wide range of experience conducting program evaluations in the US and internationally.
Collectively, the evaluation team hopes to do the following:
Gather feedback from you, the students, about your experiences so that we can help the program leaders make changes to better meet your needs.
Collect information demonstrating the effectiveness of the program, with the goal of showing the National Science Foundation that their money is well-spent and, hopefully, convincing them that they want to continue sponsoring the program.
Include all voices, especially those who are not typically part of these conversations, so that MI-LSAMP can best assist all students.
Please read more on our evaluations findings here.
We look forward to working with you over the next few years!