Lori Ebbesen

Lori Ebbesen has accomplished her Doctor of Education and brings over twenty years of evaluation experience to the Canadian Evaluation Society Educational Fund Board. She develops and implements a range of multi-level evaluations across sectors, routinely partnering with various stakeholders and contributes to evaluation capacity through workshop facilitation and committee leadership. Lori joined the CESEF Board in 2008 after two years of serving as the inaugural liaison between the Canadian Evaluation Society and CESEF and being an active member of the CESEF Program Committee. Lori now chairs the program committee, bringing valuable expertise in peer review, as well as program development, implementation and policy.

Rita Gunn

Rita Gunn is a founding partner of PRA Inc. which was established in 1988. Her evaluation assignments encompass a range of areas including health, employment training, and social services programs, as well as major evaluations concerned with legal and criminal justice policy and the effectiveness of legislation. Rita also works with non-profit organizations and government departments to assist them in strategic planning. Prior to working in her own firm, Rita was a full-time lecturer at the University of Manitoba in the Department of Sociology. It was there that her interest in evaluation was kindled with an invitation to join the University of Manitoba Research unit and lead a major legislative evaluation for the federal government. Rita has been a member of the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) for over two decades and has served on several boards, including CES. Presently she is on the board of trustees for the Manitoba Theatre Centre and is the endowment chair for the Grey Academy of Jewish Education. Rita has published a monograph and several technical papers, and has presented at national and international conferences.

Jeff Jorgensen

Jeff Jorgensen is a Senior Evaluation Officer at Industry Canada. He has been working in the fields of policy analysis and program evaluation for over 10 years. During that time, he has conducted work for all three levels of government as well as the non-profit sector. Jeff has spent the past 6 years working for the Federal Government in Ottawa, including time at Human Resources Development Canada, Social Development Canada and the Centre of Excellence for Evaluation at the Treasury Board Secretariat. Jeff holds a Master of Public Administration and a BA in International Development from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In his spare time, he enjoys sailing and song-writing.

Natalie Kishchuk

Natalie Kishchuk has 20 years of experience as a specialist in program evaluation and applied social research. Her research and evaluation background includes work related to diverse social issues, with emphasis on population health and health promotion, community development, health, education and social services organization and delivery systems, and organizational and technological change. She has worked with federal and provincial government departments and agencies, as well as with regional health boards and social services agencies and community-based groups. Dr. Kishchuk has taught research and evaluation methods at in university, government and professional development settings. She is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Société québécoise d’évaluation de programmes and the Canadian Evaluation Society, and has received awards for service to both societies.

Birgitta Larsson

Birgitta Larsson has an academic background in community development and health promotion. She has worked in the delivery of community-based
services in both Alberta and Saskatchewan. Birgitta’s interest in evaluation began over twenty years ago while completing graduate work at University of Saskatchewan. She has been a member of CES since 1992 and European Evaluation Society since 2003.

In 1994 she established a small, Edmonton based, consulting firm focusing on providing evaluation support and assistance to human service organizations. The firm provides assistance with evaluations, program planning and community development. Most of the projects involve working with disenfranchised and hard to reach populations. Over the last five years she has worked extensively with Aboriginal communities throughout Alberta allowing her the opportunity to travel to most First Nation reserves and Métis settlements. The work has lead to an increased interest in cultural issues and competencies as it relates to the application of evaluation principles and methods in non main-stream environments.

Birgitta has always been interested and involved in advancing the field of evaluation and is the Past-Chair of the Canadian Evaluation Society – Alberta Chapter (1998-2001), and is the provincial representative on the Canadian Evaluation Society’s Advocacy Initiative. In this position she has over the last two years worked extensively on an initiative focusing on ethics review of health evaluation projects through the Alberta Research Ethics Community Consensus Initiative (ARECCI).

Joe P. Kopachevsky

Joe P. Kopachevsky is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Prince Edward Island. In addition to Evaluation, his other teaching/research interests include Statistics/Methodology, Complex Organizations and Tourism. He has been a member of the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) since 1991 and has served in a number of Executive positions on CES National Council, National Committees and the Prince Edward Island Chapter. Joe has a special interest in the concept of evaluation and the use of evaluation as a means of social/organizational change.

Lisa O’Reilly

Lisa O’Reilly is a Vancouver-based independent consultant. She works in evaluation, strategic planning and policy analysis for public sector and not-for-profit organizations.

Previously, Lisa worked as a Senior Strategic Planner with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, in Ecosystem Policy for Environment Canada (Pacific-Yukon region) and as a Senior Consultant for Performance Management Network Inc.

Lisa O’Reilly is an active member of the Canadian Evaluation Society. Currently, she is on the Board for the BC Chapter of the CES as the Vancouver coordinator. In 2003, she was one of a small team of organizers for the Canadian Evaluation Society’s Student Case Competition. As an organizer, she worked to contact and solicit student competitors, judges, sponsors, and coordinate two rounds of competition. Lisa is reprising her role with the Case Competition with five others from across the country to organize the 2008 Case Competition.

Nancy Porteous

Nancy Porteous has specialized in Monitoring and Evaluation for the past 20 years, with a special interest in health and human services. Nancy Porteous is currently Director of Evaluation with the federal
government’s Public Health Agency of Canada. Nancy is also a faculty member of the International Program for Development Evaluation Training hosted by the World Bank and Carleton University.

Nancy has been an active member of the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) since 1993, serving as national President in 2000-2002 and National Capital Chapter President in 1998-2000. She represented Canada on the founding Board of the International Organisation for Cooperation in Evaluation from 2003-2005.

Nancy has a longstanding interest in educational opportunities in evaluation — she helped nurture the growth of the CES Student Evaluation Case Competition along with the Competition's founder, Michael Obrecht, and she also coordinated the annual CES Student Paper Contest. Nancy serves as Vice-Chair on the founding board of the CES Educational Fund and chairs its Program Committee.

Nancy was awarded the Contribution to Evaluation in Canada Award by the CES in 1998 for her contribution to the theory and practice of evaluation in Canada and is profiled in the Encyclopedia of Evaluation (2004). Nancy has published manuscripts, presented at international conferences, and served as guest editor for recent issues of the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation.

Barry Warrack

Barry Warrack Ph. D. is Senior Consultant, Corporate Planning and Evaluation for the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba. Key areas of responsibility include analysing the WCB’s claims database of workplace injury and illness data to identify trends and to assist in the evaluation of performance in injury prevention programs and in helping to target health and safety interventions. He also assists senior management with strategic and long-term planning at the WCB. Barry has extensive experience in policy analysis, conducting program evaluations of government program s and service quality.

Barry has had a more than 30 year career in the Manitoba public sector, working for government and conducting evaluations in the education sector, for a variety of training programs, and more recently in the health and safety regulatory area.

He has been active with the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) for many years and is currently treasurer of the Manitoba Chapter as well as Manitoba National CES Council representative and Chair of the Administration Committee.

Rochelle Zorzi

Rochelle Zorzi has been evaluating programs, policies, and initiatives since 1995, when she was a graduate student at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. One of her formative experiences was conducting an evaluation of the 1998 CES Conference in St. John’s, Newfoundland with a team of fellow students and the guidance of mentor Burt Perrin. This experience piqued her interest in promoting learning opportunities for new evaluators. Rochelle is a partner of Cathexis Consulting Inc., a small evaluation firm based in Toronto. Her evaluation practice spans a wide range of areas, such as health care, mental health, housing, social services, child development, and adult education. She is an active member of the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES), having served on the Board of the Ontario Chapter of the CES, and conducted foundational research for the Society about evaluator competencies and the benefits of evaluation. In recent years, she has become increasingly interested in assessing and demonstrating the value of evaluation.