PATRICIA MOORE SHAFFER

Principal 

Prior to establishing the Shaffer Evaluation Group, Dr. Shaffer was the Evaluation Manager for NASA's Office of Education and Vice President of the Educational Policy Institute. She has led over forty educational program evaluations ranging from national evaluation studies conducted for federal agencies including the Library of Congress and the President's Committee for the Arts and the Humanities to smaller-scale research and evaluation studies for state educational agencies and school districts. Dr. Shaffer specializes in the evaluation of educator professional development and district-based reform initiatives, especially in the subject areas of reading/literacy, mathematics, and STEM. Dr. Shaffer contributed to several important state and national policy studies, including the 2008 National Council on Disability progress report to the President on The No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. She also served on STEM evaluation federal interagency working groups in K-12 education convened by the Obama White House administration. Prior to her career in evaluation, she was an art educator in museums across the United States and Canada. Dr. Shaffer earned a Ph.D. in Educational Policy, Planning and Leadership at the College of William & Mary and a M.A. in Curriculum Studies at the University of Toronto. She is the 2020 President for the Washington Evaluators.

KELLY FELTAULT

Senior Research Associate

Dr. Feltault, senior research associate (contract) holds a PhD in Applied Anthropology and International Development from American University and has over twenty years of experience as a Program Evaluator and Grant Program Manager. Dr. Feltault served as a Senior Program Evaluator and Analyst for the Peace Corps, a contract Evaluation Specialist for the Millennium Challenge Corporation and USAID, and served on the Obama White House Evaluation Working Group for the Gender-Based Violence Prevention Strategy. As a senior program manager at the Institute of International Education, she managed federally funded grants, MOUs, and Cooperative Agreements. Most recently, she served as program director for the University of Virginia’s NSF ADVANCE IT grant, UVA CHARGE, which addressed gender equity in STEM. At the end of the grant, Dr. Feltault became the Director of Institutional Research and Analytics at the University of Lynchburg, where she worked to transition the university to a data-driven organization in addition to meeting the mandatory state and federal reporting requirements. She specializes in formative evaluation, evaluation capacity building, multi-site evaluations, developmental evaluation, data visualization, data management, qualitative research methods, survey design, gender equity, and STEM equity.

JENNIFER L. HINDMAN

Senior Research Associate

Prior to joining Shaffer Evaluation Group as a senior research associate (contract), Dr. Hindman served as the School University Research Network (SURN)’s Assistant Director at The College of William & Mary. SURN is a partnership of over 28 Virginia school divisions that is funded largely through grant awards. Dr. Hindman’s career in education began as a substitute teacher at the age of 18; she has been a middle school teacher, a science specialist, designer of educator performance appraisal systems, outreach specialist for Project HOPE, Virginia’s McKinney-Vento program, and adjunct faculty member. Throughout her career, her focus has been on engaging and impactful learning experiences whether she is working with students or fellow educators. Dr. Hindman has presented widely on student engagement, effective hiring practices, and lessons learned from grants she has co-authored. She is the author of seven books and numerous articles. She holds a Virginia Postgraduate Professional License with endorsements in Elementary Grades K-8, Gifted Education, and Administration and Supervision PreK-12. Dr. Hindman earned a Ph.D. in Educational Policy, Planning and Leadership (K-12) at the College of William & Mary. The University of Virginia awarded her Master of Teaching and B.A. degrees.

JESSE W. WHITE

Senior Consultant

Prior to joining Shaffer Evaluation Group as a senior consultant (contract), Mr. White was Career and Technical Education (CTE) Director for Hampton City Schools, Virginia. He has experience and expertise in STEM education, career academies, project management, workforce readiness, and managing organizational change processes, such as the implementation of career academies in a mid-sized school district, which led to increased student performance in math, science and entrepreneurial learning. He has written project charters and managed teams of stakeholders to create three Governor’s academies, implement career pathways, and developed a middle school gifted technology and business program and two middle school STEM programs. He is a technology and engineering teacher. He has served as Vice President for Public Policy of the Virginia Association of CTE, Past-President of Virginia Technology and Engineering Educators Association, and on the board of the Virginia Children’s Engineering Council. He has doctoral work in Education with expertise in Human Performance Technology and HRD. He has a Bachelor of Science in Education in Industrial Technology, Master of Education in Vocational Curriculum Design, and Education Specialist in Vocational and Adult Education Administration. Mr. White has been honored by his colleagues and has many awards for service and leadership including the international Distinguished Technology Educator and is certified in AutoCAD, Vocational Rehabilitation Management, OSHA, and Lean Six Sigma Greenbelt.

NOEL WILLIAMS

Research Associate

Dr. Williams, a research associate at Shaffer Evaluation Group, is a recent graduate of the Educational Policy, Planning and Leadership program at the College of William & Mary. She has a Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts in Teaching from James Madison University. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, Dr. Williams was an elementary school teacher in Virginia for five years and served as lead teacher. She has worked on two large scale federal grants; one through the Institute of Education Services (IES) and the other through the National Science Foundation (NSF). Through this work, Dr. Williams has experience developing curriculum, leading professional development for teachers, and collecting, analyzing, and managing data. From 2015-2018 she served as co-editor of the Creativity Network Newsletter, a special interest group of the National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC). She also served as a senior reviewer for the William & Mary Educational Review. Dr. Williams has presented at national and state conferences, and her research interests include family engagement, discourse analysis, and curriculum development.

ARIANNA WHITE-LEVATICH

Program Evaluation Intern

Arianna White-Levatich is a current Ph.D. student at Old Dominion University in the Educational Psychology and Program Evaluation program. Arianna also holds a Master of Science in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Old Dominion and a Bachelor of Science from William Smith College. While pursuing her doctoral degree, Arianna has been fortunate to work on two large-scale federal grants (through the Institute of Educational Services and the National Institutes of Health) and one private grant via the Spencer Foundation, all of which focused on supporting students’ motivation and learning experiences. She has presented work at international conferences and has published in peer-reviewed journals. Her work on collaborative research teams and on independent projects has helped her become experienced in designing and conducting both quantitative and qualitative research studies, as well as in analyzing and evaluating data. Arianna’s research interests are focused on student learning and development, with a concentration on how students’ academic emotions, self-regulated learning behaviors, and competence beliefs influence their achievement and goals. Arianna is also active with the American Educational Research Association as a member of the Learning & Instruction Division as well as the Motivation in Education Special Interest Group, for which she serves as the graduate student committee co-chair.