Mary E. Piontek University of Michigan, USA

Mary E. Piontek is an assistant research scientist at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where she works with individual faculty, departments/units, and schools/colleges that need assistance designing program evaluation and assessing the effectiveness of initiatives to improve teaching and learning. She has considerable experience doing evaluation research in educational settings and has consulted with foundations, schools and districts, institutions of higher education, and private organizations on program evaluation and educational research issues. Her research and evaluation techniques capture the local context of an organization or program through individual and focus group interviews, in-depth participant observation, document and archival analysis, survey research, and qualitative/quantitative mixed designs. Her research interests include the changing roles of evaluators and their client/stakeholder relationships. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in English Literature and a Ph.D. in Measurement, Research, and Evaluation.