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Colleen Grogan Moore has over 30 years of experience implementing community development and housing-based programs in collaboration with state and local governments and nonprofit organizations. She has expertise in providing technical assistance (TA) and training, including to recipients of Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) community development, housing, and homeless program funding. She has experience building strong relationships with state and local program grantees and managers and supporting communities in effectively using resources.

Natalie Matthews has over 15 years of experience in the field of homelessness, with a focus on direct service, system planning, database administration, and technical assistance and implementation (TA). Since joining Abt in 2009, Matthews has served in a variety of roles on its U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Compass TA cooperative agreements. She’s also worked on several locally and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)-funded TA projects, as well as research, monitoring and evaluation projects.  She served as the project director for the VA’s Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) monitoring project, served on the evaluation team for HUD’s first evaluation of rapid re-housing programs for families (2012), and led the evaluation of Hartford Connecticut’s homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing program (2014).

Sarah Gibson is a project-management specialist with 23 years of experience in public policy research. She has more than 20 years of experience managing complex projects, implementing random assignment studies and researching and analyzing policy for clients such as the Social Security Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. She is proficient in project management, including resource management, budgeting and quality control.

Elizabeth Giardino’s evaluation and technical assistance work on housing, community development, asset building, and government innovation policies and programs promotes opportunity and healthy outcomes for people across the U.S. Giardino specializes in leading teams, strategic planning, and relationship building, and has proven expertise in incorporating community-based participatory research into technical assistance engagements.

Lauren Pittenger comes to Abt with more than 20 years of experience working in or as a consultant to federal government agencies. She has strong grounding in research and research-based consulting to government clients. She also has extensive experience leading and growing business, managing technical and scientific projects, and coaching and supporting account teams. She has served as a director at Guidehouse, scientific program manager at Booz Allen Hamilton, and lab manager at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She has worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Canadian Public Health Laboratory Network, the Gates Foundation and the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

Nichole Fiore is a Principal Associate with over 15 years of experience evaluating housing and homelessness programs across the country, developing deep expertise on homeless service systems, organizational capacity, political and community will, unsheltered homelessness, and permanent supportive housing. Recognizing the critical link between stable, safe housing and overall well-being, Fiore is proven leader bringing together stakeholders who work across many jurisdictions and sectors to address the needs and improve the lives of people experiencing homelessness. She is a regular source for media outlets, often on the topic of homelessness in California.

Dr. Heinrich Hock is an economist with 19 years of experience conducting research on labor, education, disability employment, and social insurance. His work focuses on producing results that help policymakers and program staff understand outcomes for priority populations and research-based options for improving outcomes. He develops rigorous and feasible plans for research designs, data collection and analysis, and dissemination of findings. Hock has led work on over a dozen labor-related projects for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and other funders to assess the outcomes for groups such as dislocated workers, youth and adult jobseekers with disabilities, and veterans, among other groups. Hock also has played a key role in U.S. Department of Education (ED) studies to identify solutions for improving career outcomes among special education and adult education participants. 

Daniel Gubits conducts research in the areas of housing, homelessness, economic self-sufficiency and disability policy. Gubits’ expertise is in econometric modeling, data analysis, and random assignment program evaluation.Gubits serves as the director of analysis for the Family Options Study, conducted for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He is also leading the impact analysis work for the Social Security Administration’s Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND) project. Both of these are random assignment impact evaluations.

Lauren Olsho is a senior health economist and evaluator with expertise in random assignment, quasi-experimental evaluation methods, economic modeling methodology, and advanced statistical and econometric analysis.Olsho’s primary research interests are in health, nutrition and health behaviors in vulnerable populations – including the elderly, the poor, program participants, minorities, arrestees and at-risk youth.Olsho recently served as principal investigator on a cluster random assignment evaluation of the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality On-Time Falls Prevention Initiative, a clinical decision support intervention to reduce falls in long-term care settings.

Dr. Michael Plotzke is a senior health economist with expertise in the area of Medicare payment policy, the organization of healthcare providers and quality measurement. His work typically involves the analysis of large datasets such as Medicare claims, assessment and enrollment data. Dr. Plotzke serves as principal investigator for multiple projects with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.  On the “Home Health Prospective Payment System and Hospice: Analysis Support and Monitoring” project, Dr. Plotzke leads a team of researchers in analyzing trends in Medicare hospice and home health usage and constructing large-scale payment reform options for both benefits.  Dr. Plotzke also leads the “Evaluation of the Medicare Care Choices Model” project that evaluates a new payment model for end-of-life care that is being tested with 141 hospice providers.  This project involves analysis of existing administrative data and collection of new data through surveys of caregivers, surveys of hospice providers and in-depth case studies of hospice providers participating in the model.