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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.

Brian Chirwa is an agricultural and environmental scientist with over three decades worth of experience working on projects funded by the World Bank, the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), the Environmental Council of Zambia, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). He brings 18 years’ experience on PMI-funded projects focused on indoor residual spraying (IRS) and insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) and has provided technical leadership, assistance, and high-level management for country-wide Zambian IRS and ITN campaigns. Brian also has three decades' worth of experience designing environmental information systems (EIS) for public organizations.

Eduardo Castellon has two decades of experience helping public sector clients—from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to the Department of Housing and Urban Development—grow and refine their operations and impact. He has extensive experience delivering consulting expertise focused on artificial intelligence (AI), supply chain, procurement, financial management, and advanced analytics. His technological, consultative, and entrepreneurial skills help clients find new ways to address challenges ranging from affordable housing to homelessness to guaranteed income. He also has extensive expertise in technical assistance and implementation (TA&I) approaches. And his management experience includes developing high-performing teams through skills and career development and succession planning.

Catherine Hersey, a senior associate, is a seasoned health services researcher and project manager with over 15 years of experience in both Medicare and Medicaid. Her research areas include the implementation and evaluation of accountable care organizations and other alternative payment models, maternal health, substance use disorder, meaningful use of electronic health records, and hospital-acquired infections. Hersey also has experience in quality measurement and improvement. In addition, she has experience in both quantitative and qualitative analyses and managing large and complex projects.

Didar Ali Didar is technical advisor for monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL) in Abt’s International Technical Practice (ITP). He has more than 10 years of experience in MERL, project design, and management in the areas of agriculture, food security, economic inclusion, civil society, governance, health, and education. He also has experience in women’s rights advocacy, including designing and implementing advocacy plans and organizing national and international events.

Brad Smolek is a federal health and defense leader with deep experience in digital modernization and clinical and operational performance improvement.

Sean McClellan, Ph.D. is a mixed-methods researcher with over a decade of experience in full cycle health services research. He has experience managing research projects, developing analytic designs, cleaning and analyzing administrative data, fielding rigorous surveys, conducting qualitative interviews, and communicating findings in plain language.

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).