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Clark Abt, an engineer, environmentalist, entrepreneur, educator and social scientist, is the founder and past president of Abt Global Inc. He served as Abt’s President from 1965 to 1985, Chairman of the Board of Directors from 1986 to 2005, and was then elected Chairman Emeritus. He is the author of 10 books on social and economic policies and advanced technologies, as well as many articles.Clark Abt was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1929, and came to the United States in 1937. He entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a freshman in aeronautical engineering in 1947 and graduated with a bachelor's degree in general engineering in 1951. He then served four months in the Merchant Marine as an ordinary seaman, followed by a year at Johns Hopkins University as an English instructor, obtaining an M.A. from the Department of Writing, Speech and Drama for this master thesis, “A Year of Poems.”

Shelby Hickman is a mixed methods research and evaluation professional with 14 years of experience in program evaluation, training and technical assistance, and analysis of criminal and juvenile justice administrative data. Dr. Hickman has expertise in overseeing studies funded by the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services. She has experience in causal inference methods for both random assignment and quasi-experimental designs. Additionally, she is proficient in qualitative methodologies, such as semi-structured interviews, focus groups, cognitive interviews, and observations. Hickman is also an expert in forced labor and human trafficking.

Dr. Caroline Logan is a senior associate and health services researcher with over 15 years of experience in policy-focused mixed methods evaluation design, rigorous data collection and analysis, and development of integrated mixed methods reports and deliverables. Her expertise in federal and state health policy includes Medicare and Medicaid financing and delivery systems, care transformation and system integration, maternal health, the health and well-being of children, and the intersection of health and housing.

Katharine Witgert is a health policy researcher with 20 years of public health and health care policy experience. Witgert manages research and analysis of health system innovations, conducting program evaluations for federal clients, including design, implementation, and reporting of findings. She provides technical assistance to state officials, primarily in the areas of Medicaid reforms and building Medicaid agency partnerships with public health, behavioral health, and social services programs.

T.J. Pepping is an environmental scientist with 13 years of experience working in the intersection of data analysis and communication, helping clients interpret environmental data and share important information with the public. 

Laura Blake has more than 20 years of experience in leading scientific programs and research in the environmental science and policy domain. She has deep expertise in surface water quality restoration and protection and has spent her career designing and implementing scientific studies to support efforts to protect human health and aquatic environments. She has significant knowledge of Clean Water Act rules and regulations and has extensive experience supporting federal and state regulatory programs with implementation of and compliance with the federal Clean Water Act.

Kristie McKinley is a federal IT and business development leader with more than 33 years of experience supporting the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Patrick Ransom is an environmental engineer and certified cost estimator with more than 30 years of experience evaluating environmental technologies, policies, and regulatory costs. 

Anika Vartan has more than 20 years of experience designing, implementing, and evaluating public health and international development programs to improve access to—and quality of—health care, and increase community participation in social, economic, and political life. Vartan’s expertise is in mixed-methods and qualitative research, project management, health policy analysis, capacity building, adult education and technical assistance, organizational assessment and development, and community-driven development. She has supported the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Federal Drug Administration (FDA), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Department of State (DOS) clients.

Nicole Keane, MSN, RN, CPHQ has an extensive clinical and research background in healthcare quality improvement, measure development, team-building and formative evaluation in post-acute and primary care settings. Her focus is providing technical assistance to healthcare systems and clinicians to drive quality improvement through learning and implementing the skills of measure development, implementation, benchmarking, analysis, and report writing.