Kerry Vachta
(she/her/hers - or - they/them/theirs)
Evaluation & Education Associate
kerryv@carleton.edu
507-222-4209
![[reuse info]](/images/information_16.png)
At SERC I provide evaluation and learning support for educators who are creating innovative strategies to expand interest in, and the success and impact of, science education as well as higher education partners and their collaborators who are working on vital initiatives designed to improve public understanding of, and involvement in, critical science-informed concerns and to facilitate broader engagement in the design, adoption, and assessment of innovative and equitable solutions.
Background
Specializing in systems change and program evaluation; adaptive planning and learning; community-based and participatory research and evaluation; and strategic thought partnership, I have spent my career honing and applying the skills needed to support educational, community-based, non-profit, and philanthropic organizations in their pursuit of equity-centered, community-driven change - primarily around environment, food, and health. I help my partners create a shared vision, develop a plan to achieve that vision, and apply data gathered through systematic, typically multi-level/multi-method, evaluation to assess how well the plan is working and the intended and unintended impacts of their efforts as they unfold. Through strategic thought partnership, we apply the resulting learning to make evidence-informed adjustments to better align practice and processes with desired outcomes to ultimately drive success.
Current SERC Projects
In addition to serving as a member of the external evaluation team on numerous projects, I currently lead our evaluations of:
The Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH)
In addition to ongoing formative evaluation and thought partnership activities, our evaluation plan includes an annual Social Network Analysis, Principles Focused Evaluation, Workforce Development Plan Implementation Evaluation (assessing efforts to provide for the professional and career development needs of graduate students and post docs serving on the project's research team), and Broader Impacts Evaluation of the project's Community College and Documentary Film program activities.
Rutgers Food, Agriculture, and Marine (FAME) 4-H Ag Tech Program
Introducing high school youth to the science of land- and marine-based agricultural systems and to the scientists responsible for innovations in food and agricultural research. The project uses a unique approach involving students in film making to learn and tell the stories of agricultural scientists to gain an understanding of agricultural systems and to demystify science by creating genuine and meaningful relationships between students and the people undertaking that work.
Supporting the design, implementation, and analysis of comprehensive tools to effectively document and evaluate the functioning and impact of KECK-supported undergraduate research experiences.
S-STEM programs with partners at Morningside University and the College of Dubuque who are creating innovative strategies and curricula to ensure academically talented low income and first generation students can successfully achieve a STEM field degree and go on to flourshing STEM careers. Our evaluations involve multi-level/mixed method documentation of student retention and success and explore the impact of program activities on student identification with and commitment to continuing to pursue advanced STEM education and related careers.
Developing Environmental Leadership Through Accessible Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (DELTA CUREs) is a new project, funded by NSF's Innovation in Two-Year College STEM Education initiative that will be launching soon. Delta Cures will embed real-world scientific fieldwork and research into introductory STEM courses to increase student retention, engagement, and success among community college students.
Career
Founder and Executive Director, Rogue Scholar, LLC and Just Research, LLC
Through these consulting firms, I put the skills I developed in higher education and evaluation consulting (e.g. systems change, organizational and program evaluation and capacity building; participatory and community-based research; strategic and adaptive planning and learning; thought partnership; grant development and management, etc.) to work with governmental, philanthropic, non‐profit, community-based, and private sector organizations.
Senior Researcher, Spark Policy Institute
In this role, I helped to secure and direct evaluation, organizational consulting, and systems change projects. I supervised interdisciplinary teams of researchers, project managers, and other support staff through all aspects of projects designed to help clients create, implement, and assess typically equity-centered, community-driven, multi‐level and cross‐sector strategies to effect systems change around complex problems. I served as Spark's team lead on the national BUILD Health Challenge evaluation team and as Lead Evaluator for the Missouri Foundation for Health's Infant Mortality Reduction Initiative.
Principal Investigator/Project Director: Detroit Child Health Incubator Research Project (CHIRP). CHIRP was a 6 year long, $4.4million, NIFA‐funded participatory action research partnership with 7 community‐based organizations working to address child health in Detroit "through a food justice lens." As PI/PD, I co-facilitated the CHIRP collaborative, authored the grant that supported the project, and created systems that allowed our community partners to manage their own grant funds while meeting federal regulations and university reporting standards. I also established, trained, and supervised a research team to document the process and outcomes of the collaborative as a whole and to provide evaluation and learning support for each of our community-based partner organizations as they worked to promote child health and well-being through things like urban agriculture and community food sovereignty, critical media literacy, culturally appropriate and child-friendly healthy cooking and physical activity, environmental education, and food policy and advocacy training.
Director, Evaluation Research Unit, Center for Urban Studies, Office of the Provost, Wayne State University. In this role, I developed and maintained partnerships with university researchers and departments, as well as public sector and non-profit organizations, to provide typically multi-level/multi-method evaluation services addressing a range of policy and program initiatives to improve opportunities and quality of life for urban residents. For example, I partnered with faculty in the Departments of Computer Sciences, Biotechnology Education, and Nursing to design and implement evaluation of initiatives aimed at improving the retention and success of under-represented students in STEM fields, developed and implemented a comprehensive evaluation of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion's Community Racial Reconciliation initiative, and supported the Detroit Food Justice Task Force in their effort to establish a collaborative partnership working to eliminate racism in the Detroit food system and ensure equitable access to food, nutrition, and entrepreneurial opportunity for Detroit residents.
Associate Director for Community-based Research, Center for Community Action and Research, Penn State Harrisburg. While also serving as Assistant Professor for Environment, Community, and Social Change in PSHs undergraduate interdisciplinary social sciences program and Community Psychology and Social Change Master's program, I facilitated the development of a community service learning curriculum designed to engage graduate students in partnership with community-based organizations and non-profits. The experiences provided hands-on learning for students as they devoted their developing research and community engagement skills to collaborative engagement between the organizations and their constituents to identify shared concerns and to design, implement, and evaluate the resulting action plans. We also developed and offered professional development programming to support faculty in designing and integrating diverse, meaningful, and impactful service learning experiences into their courses.
Director, Environmental Programs and Offerings, Antioch College
As Director, I designed unique courses to meet the needs of students in two sponsoring departments: one focusing on policy and economics, the other on social movements and humanities and recruited cross-listed courses from other university faculty including those in environmental science and other STEM fields. I supervised divrse senior thesis projects for majors in both programs, participated in related campus service and co-op programming development and oversight. Delivered courses exploring things like the evolution of environmental advocacy in the US from the early conservationists through modern environmental justice organizing, domestic and international environmental policy, urban environments, environment and international development. Many courses included hands-on experiential education from public epidemiology through found object art and an annual field trip to participate in the environmental justice tract of the Detroit Summer program.
Education
Ph.D., Forestry: Michigan State University. Fall 1999 (concentrations in Urban, Community, and Environmental Studies).
Dissertation: Participatory Development and Organizational Empowerment: Community Forestry in Detroit.
M.A., Ecological/Community Psychology: Michigan State University 1993.
Master's Project: Using the Cognitive Social Learning Variables to Predict Participation in the Environmental Movement.
Selected Publications
McDonnell, J., Heitmann, M., Iverson, E., Vachta, K. E., McNally, M., Doberneck, D. (2023). Microcredentials and Certification Pilot Program for Broadening Impact Professional Competencies. Proceedings of ARIS Summit 2023: Research In Service to Society. Available at: https://researchinsociety.org/resource/general-proceedings-aris-summit-2023/
Vachta, K. E., Kweli, M. T, Campbell, Stewart, L., Davis-Williams, P., Adjuman,H., Yakini, M., Jordan, D., Thompson-Curtis, M., Spady, L., Ademé, S. and Newsom, A. (2016). Detroit Child Health Incubator Research Project: Creating a transformational community. Poster presented at the 2016 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB) annual conference and published in the corresponding issue of the Journal for the Society on Nutrition Education and Behavior. (Note: Similar posters reporting on progress and outcomes were presented annually and published in each annual corresponding issue of the SNEB journal, 2012-2016.)
McDonough, M. H. & Vachta, K. E.. (2005). "Community Empowerment and the Urban Forest" in R. G. Lee & D. R. Field Communities And Forests: Where People Meet The Land. Oregon State University Press: Corvallis, OR.
Cunningham, K. C. and Vachta, K. E.*(2003). Critical Currents in Community Service Learning and Community‐Based Research: History, Theory and Practice. Joint issue of Journal of Applied Sociology 20(2). and Sociological Practice, 5(2), 23‐41. (*Authors listed alphabetically.)
Vachta, K.E. (2002). "Participatory Development and the Sustainable City." In The Sustainable City, Proceedings of the 2002 conference, Segovia, Spain.
Vachta, K. E. (2001). Quantitative/Qualitative or Positivist/Post-positivist: Participatory research and sociological inquiry. 72nd Annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA), San Francisco, CA.
Evaluation and Research Reports
(For current projects, the most recent report is listed.)
Vachta, K. E. Iverson, E. R., and Bruckner (2025). External Evaluation of the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH): Y4 Annual Report.
Vachta, K. E. & Iverson, E. (2025). EPIIC Cohort 3: 2025 Survey Report.
Vachta, K. E. & Bruckner, M. (2025). Advancing Few-Nexus-Based Education Through Research: Final Summative End-Of-Project Report.
Vachta, K. E. (2025). REU Site: Undergraduate Research Pathways that Broaden and Strengthen the Geosciences.
Assessing Research Knowledge and Skills
Vachta, K. E. (2024). Rutgers Fame AgTech Program Evaluation Report: Pilot Implementation.
Vachta, K. E. & Bruckner, M. (2024). Connecting Research, Experiences, and Application to Engagement at the University of Dubuque: 2024 Evaluation Report of the CREATE S-Stem Project.
Carlson, A., Vachta, K. E., & Iverson, E. (2024). EPIIC PI Meeting 2024: End-Of-Event Survey Summary
Iverson, E. R. and Vachta, K. E. (2023). Bridging to Stem Excellence (BTSE): Final Research Report.
Thompson, C., O'Connell, K., Vachta, K. E., and Iverson, E. R (2023). Evaluation of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest Faculty Career Enhancement Program.
Vachta, K. E., Carlson, A., & Iverson, E. (2022). Polar Literacy: 2021-2022 Annual Evaluation Report.
Vachta, K. E. & Iverson, E. (2022). TIDeS 2021 Evaluation Summary.
Vachta, K. E. (2021). Colorado Spirit CCP Team Professional Quality of Life. (A report to CDPHE on a statewide survey exploring compassion satisfaction, burn out, and secondary trauma among COVID crisis response workers.)
Vachta, K. E. (2020). Missouri Foundation for Health. IMRI-Wide Key Learnings Summary. January-July 2020. (Report on the progress of funded partners on the Infant Mortality Reduction Initiative which sought to reduce infant mortality largely by eliminating racial disparities in maternal health and care.)
Vachta, K. E. (2019). Missouri Foundation for Health, Infant Mortality Reduction Initiative 2018-2019 Annual Report.
Spark Policy Institute & Equal Measure (2019). Community Approaches to Systems Change: A Compendium of Practices, Reflections, and Findings
Related Volunteer/Service
Jefferson County Food Policy Council Member (2019-2021).
Board member, James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership (2004-2009).
NGO Observer: United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janiero Brazil (1992).