The Power of Learning Agendas

Unlock the blueprint for modern governance in this collaborative breakthrough featuring King County and Notre Dame’s Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO). Learn how Learning Agendas transform evidence into equity-driven results. This recording is the essential toolkit for leaders seeking to accelerate organizational impact through community-centered policy evaluation.

Experience the Event

Presented by

Featured Speakers:

Diana Epstein, Evidence Team Lead, Office of Management and Budget
Keith Fudge, Senior Policy Program Manager, Urban Institute
Dr. Calvin Johnson, Deputy Assistant Secretary, HUD
Vincent Quan, Director of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation, JPAL North America
Dr. Eva Wong, Senior Maternal and Child Health Epidemiologist, Public Health—Seattle & King County

Partner with LEO

The Evidence Matters series is sponsored on ThinkND by the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO). Poverty is stubborn and requires the utmost collaboration of thought and action to drive change. People of goodwill must bring their unique strengths and positions together to solve this problem. At LEO, we believe knowledge has to be combined with action. But poverty can’t be solved by just one person, or even one sector. That’s why we bring together innovative social service provider partners, top-tier academics, philanthropists, policymakers, and others to tackle poverty.

Change is possible. And with your action, we can get one step closer to reducing poverty in our country, together.

Your job is to act. What will you do?

For more information, please visit LEO’s website.

Diana Epstein is the Evidence Team Lead at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The Evidence Team develops government-wide program evaluation policies, sets evidence building priorities, and leads efforts to improve Federal agency capacity to build and use evidence. In her role, Diana supports implementation of Title 1 of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (Evidence Act), chairs the Evaluation Officer Council, and provides technical assistance on evidence and evaluation activities for a broad range of Federal agencies and functions. She was previously a research and evaluation manager at the Corporation for National and Community Service, and before that she worked as a program evaluator and policy analyst at Abt Associates, the American Institutes for Research, and the RAND Corporation. She has a B.S. in applied math-biology from Brown University, an MPP from the Goldman School at UC Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

Meet the Speaker: Keith Fudge

Keith Fudge is director of policy management in the Research to Action Lab at the Urban Institute. He directs a body of work focused on increasing mobility from poverty. Previously, he managed technical assistance projects for Urban’s Pay for Success Initiative. He also managed the Evidence-Based Policymaking Collaborative, a partnership of experts from four research organizations that provided insight into strategies for applying rigorous evidence to the policymaking process, particularly at the federal level.

Previously, Fudge worked in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research, where he supported research and communications efforts. He was a founding staffer and senior project manager for the White House Council on Strong Cities, Strong Communities. Fudge has a BA in English from the University of Michigan and an MPP from the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

Meet the Speaker: Dr. Calvin Johnson

Dr. Calvin Johnson is Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Evaluation, and Monitoring at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Located within HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research, he serves as one of the principal advisors to the Department’s leadership on research, demonstration, and evaluation activities. He oversees a broad evaluation portfolio, including projects exploring the impact of housing on non-housing outcomes, economic self-sufficiency, health and wellness, and educational achievement. Dr. Johnson’s portfolio includes demonstrations, evaluations, and research covering a range of topics, including housing discrimination, homelessness, aging in place, disaster resilience/recovery, community planning and development, and building science and technology.

Prior to joining HUD, Dr. Johnson served dual roles as the Associate Director of the Office of Research and Evaluation and the Performance Improvement Officer at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia (CSOSA). While at CSOSA, he was principal advisor to the Director and technical and program advisor to the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council’s federal stakeholders (CJCC U.S. Parole Commission, Superior Court for The District of Columbia, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and the Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia). In his advisory role with the CJCC, he was responsible for managing a team of technical staff in delivering enterprise support for offender reentry program design and evaluation, operations research, performance management, and advanced analytics. Dr. Johnson has also served in research, evaluation, and policy positions at the University of Pennsylvania, The Urban Institute, and with the Executive Office of the Mayor of the District of Columbia.

Meet the Speaker: Vincent Quan

Vincent Quan is Director of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation at J-PAL North America. He guides the organization in leveraging partnerships to advance meaningful research collaborations, scale up proven programs, and embed a culture of evidence within policymaking. In this role, Vincent catalyzes innovative new models to build and use evidence in emerging policy areas. He works closely with policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and donors to promote evidence generation and increase the use of evidence in policymaking.

Prior to his role as Director of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation, Vincent served as Co-Executive Director alongside current Executive Director Laura Feeney, He has extensive experience translating the results from randomized evaluations into action, promoting a culture of evidence-informed policy across the region. Vincent oversaw J-PAL North America’s efforts to cultivate lasting relationships with partners across the evidence-based policymaking ecosystem, including government policymakers, philanthropic leaders, and nonprofit heads. In his former role leading J-PAL North America’s policy team, he launched multiple new initiatives, including the Education Technology and Opportunity Initiative and the Covid-19 Recovery and Resilience Initiative, to generate important studies to identify effective solutions to address poverty. Under Vincent’s leadership, research catalyzed by J-PAL North America directly informed policy across all levels of government, including federal recommendations and state policies on education.

Before joining J-PAL, Vincent worked at the Prison Law Office, where he conducted research to improve conditions of confinement in prisons across California, and at the Legal Aid Society in New York City, where he assisted low-income residents in navigating the criminal court system. He holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a BA in History from UC Berkeley.

Meet the Speaker: Dr. Eva Wong

Dr. Wong is an applied public health practitioner and researcher with a primary appointment as the senior maternal and child health epidemiologist at Public Health-Seattle & King County. In addition to co-leading the Best Starts for Kids evaluation, she serves as a senior epidemiologist and evaluation lead for maternal and child health programs within Public Health-Seattle & King County. Dr. Wong works closely with internal public health programs, students pursing public health and nursing graduate degrees, and is honored to work closely with local community-based organizations on upstream public health interventions.

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