Hear From Our Satisfied Clients
Client Testimonials
“Dr. Shekar is an invaluable thought partner, collaborator and consultant for SMU CORE. She is reliable both in the consistent quality of her work and in her commitment to utilizing the full potential of social science to address inequity. She sees evaluation partners as people first. She understands that evaluation is inherently relational, as much as it is an empirical undertaking. She strikes a balance between designing and implementing rigorous investigations and adapting to fit the real world-needs of programs.”
Dr. Annie Wright
Executive Director, Center for Research & Evaluation (CORE), Simmons School of Education and Human Development, Southern Methodist University
“Anu offers a rare combination of relational and technical expertise. She is committed to working with partners to uncover what is working and what needs to be changed, expanded or appropriately resourced to achieve the high quality outcomes for people and communities.”
Merideth Trahan
Chief of Staff, WIDA, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“Anu has a very clear, structured process that makes it easy to dive into the logic model development with the whole team. The process was immediately very helpful in clarifying where the Open Learning Program Model needed changes and it reflected well our challenges at the time. As we've continued growing our programs, Anu's work with us continued to be instrumental in refining our wider impact strategy. This is helping significantly with building my program strategy and our organizational strategy for the years to come. I very much enjoyed working with Anu.”
Emily E. Reid
CEO, AI4ALL
“We have been building out our team over the past 18 months after the sale of a local hospital resulted in our conversion to a large grant-making foundation focused in one geographic area. Of upmost importance (and difficulty) is engaging the most effective evaluation resources – how do we know we’re having an impact? Anu has been a critical piece of our conversion, working closely with our entire leadership and grant teams. Her research and evaluation skills have directly informed our logic models. With her engagement and expertise, we are better at identifying and measuring the specific grant-making activities that will directly result in improved lives for Weld County citizens. Anu’s strong interpersonal skills have led to a deeper connection with our grant team. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with her.”
Mike Bond
COO, The Weld Trust
“Anu is a highly skilled evaluator who has demonstrated she has excellent skills in evaluation design, conducting quantitative and qualitative data analyses, and creating reports in various formats. She collaborates effectively with EEC team evaluators and clients. She completes tasks within budget and on time. We are so glad she’s a member of our team!”
Patricia Mueller
Ed.D President, Evergreen Evaluation & Consulting, Inc.
“I had the distinct pleasure of working with Dr. Shekar while she obtained her doctoral degree and later, while she conducted research and evaluation for the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Shekar has exceedingly strong inquiry, writing and communication, and computer and analytic skills. Her background in computer programming, her exceptional communication skills honed during her journalism career, and her strong research skills provide an unbeatable foundation for her work in research and evaluation.”
Dr. Carolyn Kelley
Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“Learning and evaluation within a Foundation environment requires a unique skill set. One must be able to understand not only individual funding initiatives but also how those initiatives work together toward maximal impact. Ms. Shekar is very detail-oriented and grasps measurement and environmental context extremely well. Additionally, she understands the big picture and internalizes the goals of the organization for meaningful impact. She is an amazing resource.”
Jeff Carlson
CEO, The Weld Trust
“Dr. Shekar is a NVivo Certified Trainer with QSR International. She is an experienced qualitative researcher and program evaluator who has a long history of using NVivo across various content areas. Her work combines use of both manual and software guided techniques for conducting rigorous data analysis across various qualitative disciplines. She uses NVivo to guide organizations find powerful insights from their qualitative data to drive impact within communities. As an expert NVivo trainer, she has conducted trainings and provided research and evaluation consultations for non-profit, government, and academic sectors”
Dr. Stacy Penna
Director of Engagement and Enablement, QSR International
“I really appreciate having Anu's expert advice to guide creation of our first set of Logic Models and to take a deep look at our existing evaluation tools. She's been very thorough and collaborative with the entire College Pathways team in terms of going through multiple iterations of the Discover AI logic model. She asks key questions to get at the essential elements of our program and uses what she's learned from her work with Summer Programs to help inform our model. Additionally, her ongoing support in getting our privacy policy and consent forms in place has been invaluable. I appreciate that Anu adjusts her evaluation approach based on how mature a program is. For example, because Apply AI is so new, Anu has adjusted her evaluation approach (i.e., chosen to guide us through an abbreviated version of creating an LM since it will likely change quite a bit after the pilot, been thoughtful about the number and kinds of surveys to administer to get the most useful data out of the pilot). It shows that she's really thinking about what evaluation tools are effective for the situation at hand rather than just taking a uniform or blanket approach to all programs. I know Anu is simultaneously working with a number of program teams in addition to whatever contracts she has outside of AI4ALL. Despite that, when she worked with my team, she was always completely on top of what was going on and very familiar with all the details nuances related to College Pathways. I never noted any confusion or mix-up with our work, and that was quite impressive. Her ability to keep all the details straight must only make her more effective and streamlined in executing on all her projects. Anu is incredibly responsive, a good communicator, and has great follow-through, which makes her easy to work with. She also is just very easy to form a connection with and generates warmth and an immediate sense of comfort. This is critical for her role because she has such a short time to ramp up her work and build trust with many different teams and people she works with. Anu provided a great foundation for AI4ALL to start developing capacity to manage a high-quality evaluation strategy in-house."
Dr. Roshni Kasad
Senior Director, College Pathways Program, AI4ALL
“Dr. Shekar is incredibly gifted at listening to the needs of the client, prioritizing the data that will help us know our impact, and then analyzing it to identify the highest-leverage next steps to bring our vision to life for the community we serve. I worked extremely closely with her and her team as I was launching an alumni network for over 1500 educators across Dallas-Ft. Worth at an education non-profit. Dr. Shekar helped me conduct focus groups with an inclusive, representative sample of our leaders, in addition to doing a quantitative survey. She used her exceptional skills with NVivo to analyze all of this information and pull out key trends to guide our programmatic focus. This allowed us to prioritize our offerings in line with what our community was telling us they wanted and needed. A Boston Consulting Group analysis of our program, after we had been operating using the guidance from Dr. Shekar's team, found that our alumni network was 2.5 times as effective at closing opportunity gaps for students in their schools compared to peers. It also showed that we had a Net Promoter Score above 80% with our alumni. This meant that Dr. Shekar's data guidance allowed our alumni school leaders to become more effective and strongly recommend our program.”
Dr. Matt Pierson
Director of Consulting, TNTP
“Dr. Shekar is an exemplary researcher who advances equity in all her work with utmost empathy and care. When I served on the Dallas Young Women’s Advisory Council, Dr. Shekar taught me foundational knowledge of qualitative research and evaluation methods with an equity lens. I’ve been able to apply what I learned in my professional life as a former municipal government employee working to close disparities in historically excluded communities. I am grateful for Dr. Shekar’s mentorship and service to the Dallas community.”
Sommer Iqbal
UC Berkeley MPP candidate and former City of Dallas employee
“Desperate to find help to begin data analysis for my dissertation, I randomly found Dr. Anupama Shekar’s profile on a data analysis software site and reached out for support. Despite my theoretical knowledge of how to conduct data analysis, I had no idea where to begin after collecting so much data. Dr. Shekar immediately responded to my plea for guidance, met with me virtually and in just one conversation, lifted the heavy burden of fear, anxiety and imposter syndrome I felt initially. She quickly came to understand my research focus, walked me through the process step-by-step, advised me on how to begin the coding process with the data analysis software, and demonstrated how to use its complex technical features. The amount of relief I felt after meeting with Anu, gave me the motivation and courage to start my data analysis with a much clearer picture of what was required of me to categorize and code my data. The fact that she was across the country and did not know me from a can of paint, but agreed to give me this level of support and guidance is something that I will forever be grateful for! As I continue my journey in academia, I will most certainly be reaching out to Dr. Shekar for consultation. She is so quick on her feet and knows exactly how to promptly assess your needs and start to conceptualize a plan of action for you; as you watch it happening before your eyes, the stress, anxiety or confusion you had begins to dissipate. I am so excited to know that Dr. Shekar has developed a business around her unique skillsets and brilliant mind, to help academics and researchers elevate their approaches.”
Dr. Bruce E. Mitchell II
Associate Director, Center for Inclusive Excellence and Global Engagement, Eastern Kentucky University
"It is a delight to work with Anu. Indeed, Anu has demonstrated top-notch expertise in working with clients to generate the actionable and timely information that they need. Anu’s collaborative approach, along with her effective communication skills, have been key to delivering high-quality work products in her role as an evaluation consultant to PIE. We highly recommend Anu to anyone seeking a skilled and dedicated evaluator who produces impactful results."
Barbara Thomas
Director of Evaluation, PIE Org