Executive Committee
President | Vice President
Cassandra (Casey) Filer, MA As an independent consultant, Casey works on local, national, and international program evaluations. Her experience is mostly centered around youth programs, particularly evaluations of informal learning, STEM, conservation, civic engagement, and vocational training programs. She has a Master’s degree in Program Evaluation from Michigan State University and another in Arab Studies, with a concentration on Culture and Society, from Georgetown University. Casey has lived in Senegal, Gabon, France, and Yemen, but is delighted to currently reside in the Chicago area. Her hobbies include hiking, scuba diving, and trying to convince her toddler to do stuff, like put on pants. | Treasurer
Christina Iyengar, DrPH Lead Evaluator, Rush University Medical Center Check back soon for Bio! | SecretaryToi Wise currently serves as the Education Evaluation and Data Specialist for Enlace Chicago, a community-based nonprofit in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago. In this Specialist role, she supports youth programming by leading the planning and execution of an annual evaluation, analyzing various data for grant reporting, and fostering staff evaluation capacity building. Toi was a 2021 CEA-CREA scholarship recipient and a 2022 member of Evaluation Pathways Initiative’s first cohort of the Emerging Evaluators program. She holds a Master of Education in Youth Development from the University of Illinois Chicago. Prior to joining Enlace, Toi worked in elementary classrooms in roles such as Special Education Classroom Assistant. Through her transition from the classroom to evaluation, she strives to incorporate and promote positive youth development in her work and be an agent of change within the out-of-school time space. Her commitment to promoting equitable opportunities for success outside of the classroom guides her work to be a facilitator, collaborator, counselor, and educator in the evaluation field. |
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Committee Leadership
Communications and Website (Co-chair) Brad Krueger Evaluation Consultant, Krueger Consulting Brad@bkruegerconsulting.comBrad is a passionate, equity-focused, relationship-centric evaluator. He thrives on building systems to collect, review, and present data. He humbly embraces opportunities leverage data to support the mission and impact of organizations he is privileged to support. He received his Masters of Public Health from Des Moines University in 2017 after completing his Bachelor of Science in Biology from Bethel University. Since, he has worked as an evaluation consultant with a small firm in Minneapolis and now independently from Chicago. | Communications and Website (Co-chair) Ayeshia (AJ) Johnson-Garrett Program Partnerships Specialist UMOJA Student Development Corporation ajohnson-garrett@umojacorporation.org Ayeshia is passionately curious about the intersections of historical trauma, community-based action, and healing intergenerational trauma. Growing in her capacity for community-based research and participatory budgeting she strengthens her practitioner network by way of participation in the Chicago Coalition on Urban Girls (CUG). From 2016 to present, Ayeshia help launch CUG Conference Forums that focus on strategic recommendations to shift the social norms for gender equality and improve the health, safety, and wellness of ALL girls who reside in Chicago. On October 11, 2018 – the International Day of the Girl, CUG released “Girls in the City: A Status Report on Teen Girls Residing in Chicago.” From 2017-2019 the governing body appointed Ayeshia to serves as the Chair of the Steering Committee, and she continues to advocate for data and social connectivity of all girls that closely relate to a community needs to improve the quality of life for everyone. She is a visionary and builder of relationships, Ayeshia believes in the excellence, elevation, and compassion for all people. | Past President Asma Ali, PhD
Founder and Principal Consultant,
AA & Associates, LLC
Dr. Ali’s work includes developing and implementing strategic evaluation plans to support evidence-based decision-making that advances organization and program goals. Employing qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches, she specializes in culturally responsive, participatory, and utilization-focused measurement of learning, behavioral, and systems change. An AEA Graduate Education Diversity Initiative Alumna (2008-9), she has also served on AEA's Culturally Responsive Evaluation Committee, is a founder and co-Chair of the Health Professions Topical Interest Group, and served as Program Chair for the LaRed Topical Interest Group. She is a frequent invited speaker at national conferences on evaluation and measurement topics. Dr. Ali has also served as an adjunct professor teaching evaluation, design-based inquiry, and research methods courses. |