Meet the NCEN 2023 Board Members

Ellen Wilson, President

Ellen Wilson joined NCEN in 2020 and has served on the board since 2021. She has been conducting research and evaluation in the area of public health, primarily reproductive health, for more than 25 years. She received masters degrees in international affairs and public health from Columbia University in 1992, and began her career working in international development, including living and working  for one year in Burkina Faso and two years in Paraguay on programs supporting family planning services.  After receiving her PhD in Maternal and Child Health at UNC, she worked for 18 years at RTI international on U.S.-based projects. In 2020, she began working as an independent evaluation consultant, starting her own company, Insight Evaluation. In this role, she is enjoying the opportunity to work in closer collaboration with organizations working at the community level and expanding her substantive areas of work to include (so far) education, community development, and mental health. Ellen is the mother of a 20-year-old son. She lives near Carrboro with her husband and dog and enjoys hiking with them in the woods around their house. 

Monifa Beverly, Vice President

Monifa-Beverly-Headshot

Monifa Beverly is owner and principal of Beverly Consulting Group, LLC based in Charlotte, NC. Monifa holds a doctoral degree in Education with a focus on culture, curriculum, and change, and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in economics. She has 17 years of program evaluation experience applying a collaborative and culturally responsive and equitable evaluation (CCREE) approach toward supporting community members and organizations, educational institutions, and informal science organizations. Monifa has provided evaluation services to foundations and multiple federally funded programs including the National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Education. In addition, Monifa has mentored graduate students for over 15 years as an assistant professor of qualitative research and statistics, a dissertation chair, and a consultant. She has benefitted from RTPE (now NCEN) events and webinars, and she plans to continue building capacity for current and future evaluators and expanding the network of evaluators in North Carolina.

Michela Garrison, Treasurer

Michela-Garrison-Headshot

Michela Garrison has been part of the NCEN community since 2017 and is honored to serve as the treasurer. She is an experienced program evaluator with a focus on family planning, health systems, and mixed-method approaches. Michela started her career in public health as a sexual health educator and community organizer and went on to earn her Masters of Public Health degree in Maternal Child Health from UNC at Chapel Hill.  She has had the privilege to work on public health projects focused on advancing access to SRH care in domestic and international settings and currently serves as a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Director at Upstream USA leading the organization’s patient survey and qualitative patient interview portfolio. When she’s not traveling in her tiny camper, you can find Michela in Durham enjoying a good book, cooking up a delicious meal with her partner, or on a hike with her two dogs, Nala and Soggy.

Allie Jaarsma, Secretary

Allie-Jaarsma-Headshot

Allie Jaarsma first joined NCEN in 2021 and is excited to be serving as secretary. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and spent the early part of her career working as a communications specialist and digital project manager for organizations in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors in the San Francisco Bay Area. She fell in love with North Carolina (and program evaluation) after moving to Durham in 2018 to earn her Master of Public Policy from Duke University and has spent the past three years working as a program evaluator and policy analyst, first for the North Carolina General Assembly and now at RTI International. She is particularly interested in K-12 education policy and helping state and local agencies ensure they are effectively serving their stakeholders. In her spare time, she loves to bake, hike, and explore the Triangle food scene. She also serves on the board of Durham Central Park, a five-acre park in the heart of downtown Durham.

Tatia Prieto, Member at Large

Tatia-Prieto-Headshot

Since 2007, Tatia has led Prismatic Services, a boutique consulting firm focused exclusively on serving PreK-12 leaders and their organizations. To date, the firm has consulted for hundreds of school districts and education agencies in 30+ states. Based in Charlotte, Tatia and Prismatic have completed all kinds of evaluations for client- and grant-funded PreK-12 programs.

Tatia graduated from UNC-Charlotte with a doctorate in educational leadership in 2016. When not travelling for work, Tatia likes to take her three dogs and husband on long walks, then tend to her urban flock of three chickens.