Jessica Alzen

Jessica Alzen is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Assessment, Design, Research and Evaluation. Dr. Alzen is a mixed-methods evaluator with an emphasis on utilization-focused evaluation. In each project, she draws from her years teaching in secondary and post-secondary classrooms, training in rigorous methodology, and research experience across a variety of education contexts to bring together a unique approach to education evaluation. Her broad experience allows her to ask insightful questions about programs while also always keeping an ear toward the realities of on-the-ground stakeholder experiences. 

Dr. Alzen’s use of utilization-focused evaluation highlights her passion for evaluation work that makes a practical and useful difference for practitioners. Her expertise in mixed-methods evaluation allows her to conduct rigorous statistical analysis as well as identify themes from surveys, interviews, and site visits to understand context for the results from quantitative analysis. This mixed-methods approach allows for her work to tell important stories across large quantitative datasets while also understanding the nuance of individual experiences as well as unique and specific contexts. 

A key characteristic of Dr. Alzen’s work is the ability to communicate about research findings and complex statistical analysis across stakeholder audiences including educators, administrators, and community members in practical and relevant ways for each group. Finally, Dr. Alzen considers herself a master cat herder and project manager, able to simultaneously keep the plates spinning from multiple projects while drawing together partners across ranks and sectors to get the best work done with the most important and diverse voices at the table. 

Education

PhD Research and Evaluation Methodology, University of Colorado Boulder, 2017
MA English Pedagogy, California Baptist University, 2007
BA English, California Baptist University, 2005
BSc Mathematics, California Baptist University, 2005