Trustee elections
Our trustees play an important role in guiding the direction of the UK Evaluation Society. Ahead of the upcoming trustee elections, you can learn more about the candidates standing for election below. We encourage members to take a moment to read their statements and find out about the experience, perspectives, and ideas they would bring to the board.
- Voting is open for members from 12:30pm (GMT) on Monday 23 March until 12:30pm (BST) on Monday 30 March.
- To take part in the vote, members must have an active membership at 10:00am (GMT) on Monday 23 March. Eligible members will receive an email from our voting service provider containing a unique voting link. The link can be used one-time, to cast your vote.
- To support a fair and transparent election process, we are using an independent voting service provider (Election Buddy) to manage the ballot.
- If you do not see the email when voting opens, please check your junk or spam folder, as automated emails can sometimes be filtered there.
- Log in to your member account to check your membership status or join as a new member.
We would like to extend our sincere thanks to everyone who stood as a candidate in this year’s trustee elections. Standing for election takes time, thought, and a genuine commitment to supporting the work and future of the UK Evaluation Society, and we are very grateful to all those who put themselves forward.
Candidate preview
Candidates are listed alphabetically by last name
I am a mixed methods evaluator, policy researcher and team leader at ICF, with experience spanning consultancy, the charity sector and the NHS. Together with previous trustee and volunteer roles, these experiences have shaped my understanding what is needed: providing strategic steer; supporting the member community, volunteers and staff; and helping organisations make thoughtful, values led decisions when considering opportunities and risks.
I have supported the UK Evaluation Society (UKES) through conference volunteering, including abstract reviewing. I believe UKES has an important role in helping our community navigate current challenges from resourcing, methodologies and commissioning to the impact of new technologies, while continuing to nurture the next generation of evaluators. As a trustee, I would want to support UKES as an inclusive, member led Society that values ethical, non-extractive practice and interdisciplinary exchange.
My leadership approach is grounded in inclusion, transparency and care for people. I have worked to support early career researchers through mentoring, clearer progression pathways and more inclusive recruitment, and I am adept at communicating across contexts and coaching others to find their voices. With my lived experience as a trans woman, a parent and an ethnic minority, I can also offer understanding of how intersecting identities shape participation, voice and belonging within professional spaces.
I am the Head of Monitoring and Evaluation for R&D MAP at UKRI and I am committed to strengthening the role of evaluation in improving policy, practice, and public services. Through my work, I have developed a strong understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing the evaluation sector, including the need for high-quality evidence, ethical practice, and meaningful engagement with diverse stakeholders.
Alongside my technical experience in evaluation, I have always brought a collaborative approach to leadership and governance. As a neurodivergent adult, I really value inclusive decision-making, strategic thinking, and supporting organisations to adapt and grow in changing environments. I am particularly interested in how professional communities like the UK Evaluation Society can support evaluators at different career stages while also strengthening the visibility and influence of evaluation across government, academia, and the voluntary sector.
If elected as a Trustee, I would aim to contribute thoughtful strategic guidance to the Board and help the Society continue to grow as an inclusive and forward-looking professional community. My priorities include supporting professional development, fostering collaboration across sectors, and ensuring that evaluation continues to play a vital role in evidence-informed decision-making in the UK and beyond.
With a passion for improving evaluation practice, I am keen to utilise my expertise and understanding from working across the education, health and social care and local government sectors, and especially to support the expansion of the society’s training and professional development functions. Having set up a new evaluation team within my current organisation and been embedded in health and social care evaluation for the last few years I have a deep knowledge of challenges within the evaluation sector. High on the agenda are the need for rapid, real-world evidence and actionable insights to inform rapidly evolving, complex and resource constrained working practices and commissioning; accessing and using big data whilst continuing to raise the profile of mixed methods and systems approaches; and the rapidly evolving AI landscape. I bring strong sector specific knowledge and relationships that will enable me to play a pivotal role in helping to shape the society’s ambitions and its response to these challenges. From my varied career and voluntary roles, e.g., school governor and mentor for a charity supporting leadership training and employability, I have a strong skill set and robust working knowledge of legal duties, information governance, organisational development and leadership.
Evaluation is one of the most exciting social sciences, with the power to improve the services we all rely on – yet most people don’t know it exists. The UK Evaluation Society (UKES) is increasingly influential in shaping the profession and raising its visibility, and I would welcome the opportunity to support its work as a trustee. I have been a social policy evaluator since 2011, leading teams at the Anna Freud Centre, NatCen, and Verian UK, and holding academic posts at UCL and Birkbeck. I am now a Director at IFF Research, leading evaluations for government departments and What Works Centres. I also serve on the government’s Evaluation and Trial Advice Panel.
I care deeply about strengthening evaluation practice, for example encouraging debate on perceived divides between theory based and experimental approaches; improving public understanding of evaluation; and helping to attract people to the field. My governance experience includes serving as a trustee for the Association for Psychosocial Studies, where I organised events and managed communications, and as an academic governor at Birkbeck, contributing to the university’s strategy and oversight.
I would bring this experience, along with a commitment to strengthening the profession, to support UKES as it continues to grow its visibility and influence.
I am a Principal Researcher at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, with over 15 years’ of evaluation experience across policy areas (public health and climate change, community development, and employment and skills), working with public and voluntary sector organisations in the UK and Europe.
I have developed leadership and governance experience through several roles, supported by my training in organisational consultancy and change. As former UK Evaluation Society (UKES) London and Southeast Regional Network convenor, I worked with colleagues across sectors and career stages to shape the Network’s direction, develop a sustained programme of events, and create spaces for professional exchange. I lead evaluation projects across multidisciplinary teams and have served as a workplace union representative and senior staff member within a registered charity.
I see evaluation as a practice that supports learning, reflection, and collective judgements about value. As expectations for evidence grow, evaluation has gained visibility and methodological diversity while raising questions on the field’s identity, purpose, and role in society. My doctoral research explored how UK evaluators experience these developments and the institutional, market, and professional dynamics shaping practice, highlighting the importance of professional spaces to collectively shape the future of the field.
I would aim to contribute thoughtful strategic oversight to UKES in supporting this role. I believe UKES has an important role in ensuring that the field’s diversity remains a source of intellectual vitality, continues to grow and support the needs of its membership, and convening dialogue about the future of evaluation.
I have built my career around a simple commitment: helping public services and civil society organisations do more good by using evidence well. As a macroeconomist and applied policy researcher, I have worked with policymakers and practitioners across the UK, USA and Japan to turn complex analysis into practical insight that can improve decisions, delivery and outcomes.
Alongside my evaluation experience, I would bring strategic leadership, partnership-building and a strong sense of public purpose to the UK Evaluation Society (UKES) Board. My work across academia, global professional bodies and applied research has given me experience of leading programmes, building networks and supporting organisational development, as well as a wide interdisciplinary network that I would be proud to bring to the Society.
If elected, I would want to help UKES grow its reach and influence, strengthen links between evaluators, policymakers and practitioners, and support evaluation that is rigorous, proportionate and genuinely useful in practice. I would be excited to contribute to the Society’s leadership at a time when high-quality evaluation has so much to offer public services and civil society.
I am a senior evaluator with over a decade of experience across consultancy and government. I am currently Head of Evaluation and Performance at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK’s national research funder. My work focuses on embedding evaluation in decision-making so that evidence genuinely shapes how organisations learn and improve.
I am passionate about evaluation as both a discipline and a professional community. At UKRI I chair the Performance and Evaluation Network, supporting a 40-person evaluation community across a large, complex organisation. This experience has shown me the importance of building spaces where evaluators can learn from each other, challenge assumptions and develop practice together.
I have been a member of the UK Evaluation Society for four years and have greatly benefited from its training, conferences and community. If elected as a Trustee, I would be keen to support UKES in continuing to grow as an open, diverse and forward-looking professional community.
I am particularly interested in strengthening evaluation as a profession, supporting the use of evaluation in decision-making, and helping the Society engage confidently with emerging opportunities such as AI and new analytical methods, while maintaining high standards of ethical and robust practice.
This is a pivotal moment for the evaluation community. Never before has evidence been more under threat due to misinformation and ideology and yet the opportunities that AI brings also opens the possibility of evidence abundance. The UK Evaluation Society (UKES) has a vital role to play in helping members navigate this transition responsibly, ethically and with confidence.
If re‑elected, I would focus on continuing to help UKES drive forward how the evaluation practice can remain policy relevant, harness AI tools and act as an outward-looking voice for our profession. I am also personally committed on the need for us to reach out to early-stage evaluators (our future!) and develop cutting edge training courses and webinars (especially on AI).
I have an international development and foreign policy background and currently work in the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), where I lead MEL for the economic growth portfolio. This covers UK trade and investment as well as economic development partnerships with developing countries. I also sit on the FCDO AI Evidence Working Group and am currently coordinating the development of a new UKES AI training course.
I have worked for 18 years in evaluation. In government, as a consultant and within the European Commission. I am neither a quant nor qual fundamentalist but a believer in using the right mix of tools for the job. Beyond evaluation, also bring strong experience in indicator development, assurance processes, theories of change, and embedding evidence and learning into strategic decision‑making.
As an established leader within evaluation, impact assessment and research management with over 20 years’ experience, I have a strong existing network amongst research funding charities, government agencies, and the academic community on which to further build. I feel fortunate to have been able to forge a career path through evaluation and I am keen to support efforts to progress this for others. I believe the role of Trustee offers a unique opportunity to apply my strategic thinking skills and evaluation knowledge. I would love to support the UK Evaluation Society to:
• Review and evolve its organisational strategy, drawing on my leadership and management expertise
• Develop evaluation career pathways, particularly early and peer-to-peer opportunities to grow and enhance our sector
• Advocate for open evaluative research practice, enabling greater evidence synthesis and learning.
My career spanning focus on health and wellbeing; funder, charitable and consultancy experience; academic credibility and understanding of the policy context will enable me to successfully deliver the role and be a thoughtful and respected representative for the Society. I hope that my passion, collaborative and inclusive working style, positivity, and strategic outlook will be key to developing and implementing organisational plans.
For the last 30 years I have worked with charitable, business and public sector organisations to understand the levers of change and support organisations to drive evaluation-led action. With evaluation increasingly recognised as a decision-making tool, I am enthusiastic about helping the UK Evaluation Society maximise this opportunity to strengthen understanding and professionalisation across the sector.
I am the Founder and Director of Bean Research, an independent consultancy specialising in learning, evaluation and social value. At Bean, we work as a learning and evaluation partner to help evaluate, embed and understand social change a number of funding charities, foundations and public bodies, helping organisations strengthen programmes through evidence and insight rather than retrospective reporting alone.
My work spans mixed-method, theory-based design and delivery, contribution analysis and Social Return on Investment, alongside testing pilots and helping organisations scale approaches based on evidence.
Alongside consultancy, I teach evaluation and social value at Cranfield School of Management.
As a Trustee, I would bring my experience and energy to support both the UK evaluation community and the UK Evaluation Society’s role in amplifying the role and value of evaluation in decision-making.
I have 25 years’ experience as an evaluator and am Managing Director of a consulting company IOD PARC. I take an agile, creative approach to shaping the company’s strategic direction and organisational development, balancing people, profit and performance outcomes. My 10 years of prior board experience provides governance expertise and the ability to provide strategic oversight informed by commercial and financial insight.
Evaluation in the International Development sector is rapidly evolving, shaping how evaluations are designed and delivered. While accountability remains central, shrinking budgets mean clients increasingly seek real-time, evidence-based insights to support decision-making. This requires adapting methods and approaches while maintaining rigour and efficiency. Key considerations include: adopting systems and context led approaches; capturing tangible and intangible contributions to outcomes; strengthening communication and links to decision making and learning; and embracing the opportunities presented by AI. All while recognising risks to quality trust and rigour if implemented poorly.
I am committed to supporting evaluation’s continued evolution and relevance. As well as oversight and strategic direction, I can support the UK Evaluation Society (UKES) to:
• Connect networks and broker knowledge exchange and innovative practice with Evaluation Societies and evaluators globally
• Support commissioners with smaller budgets and emerging evaluators
• Promote ethical and locally led evaluation practice
• Advance understanding of evaluation quality
The UK Evaluation Society (UKES) has been an incredibly important part of my journey as an evaluator. My connection to UKES started as a junior evaluator looking for community, and transitioned to being a senior expert who became Vice President for Events, speaks at the conference, and works alongside UKES to foster knowledge sharing events (such as creating EvalNatter or leading webinars). It would be an honour to serve as trustee as my next steps.
I believe my evaluation background and experience will serve UKES. I have worked as a government evaluator as well as in the consultancy sector, and I bring a blend of domestic and international development evaluation experience with expertise in traditional (e.g. peacebuilding) and new (e.g. cybersecurity) sectors. I am the global Head of MEL for a specialist evaluation provider where I lead and mentor staff globally, and I am Team Leader on the ISF Cyber MERL Partnership where I lead MEL services for a mega-portfolio of £300million+ of cyber programming housed in the Cabinet Office.
I am deeply passionate about evaluation. It is the most interesting and meaningful career path one can embark on. Evaluation is the bridge between the realities of delivery and the decision-makers who oversee it; there is no more honourable and important profession than building that bridge.