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Meryl Finkel leads Abt Global’s Housing and Communities Practice, overseeing large-scale housing; community and economic development; and social policy data collection, analysis and technical assistance projects. Clients include the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Corporation for National and Community Service, as well as foundations and state and local governments.

Alan White is a nationally renowned health economist, highly respected for his rapid response to clients’ complex information and research needs with data-driven, creative solutions. As the senior health economist for the Health Policy Practice, he leads high-profile projects and guides the practice’s health economists.

Allan Porowski joined the Social and Economic Policy Division of Abt Global in 2014 as a principal associate. He is a leading expert in the design, execution and analysis of randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies and national cross-site evaluations of education, health and other social interventions.

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.

Sandra Wilson is an internationally known expert in research synthesis and meta-analysis. She has conducted systematic reviews of educational programs, most notably on school-based violence prevention and high school dropout programs.Prior to joining Abt, Wilson was the associate director of the Peabody Research Institute and a research assistant professor at Vanderbilt University. Wilson led and supported research projects at the Center for Evaluation Research and Methodology at Vanderbilt.

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.

ZeAmma Brathwaite has over 20 years of experience partnering with private organizations and federal agencies to improve access to care and health outcomes for individuals and communities. A certified project management professional, Brathwaite has extensive experience leading multidisciplinary teams in the design, implementation, and evaluation of complex, large-scale transformation efforts using improvement science methods and tools to accelerate change.

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.

Kelly Wagner has over 25 years of experience designing and delivering technical assistance, training, and capacity building. A skilled public health professional trained in epidemiology, she has developed and led more than 10 national TA programs for federal awardees from various agencies including the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and offices within the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH). Wagner has worked with community-based organizations, health centers, academic institutions, and state/local health agencies, reaching target audiences with unique and diverse public health needs across the lifespan. 

Francesca Lawe-Davies is a senior development specialist with more than 18 years of experience in government, non-government, private sector, and multilateral development organisations. She has broad experience leading teams in complex development programs across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Francesca has worked with government and civil society leaders at all levels, providing strategic and technical advice and guiding programmatic support on education policy and delivery, decentralisation, village governance, peacebuilding, and gender-based violence prevention and response services.